Bike Won't Stay Started

Last year I bent a rim on my bike and today I finally got a new rim on the thing. It's probably been about 10 months since I drove the thing.

I bought this bike off of someone on craigslist. I have another bike that I built.

Anyway the bike has always had a hard time starting.

Now this is the first time I tried driving it in 10 months, it started up and I came to a stop, I sat and let it idle for 10-15 seconds and went to take off and the motor stalled out.

Could it be that I have 10 month old gas in it?

The bike has always been kinda hard to start but would work fine once I got it going. Today I couldn't get it going at all, I would pedel release the clutch and it would start to do something and just conk out every time.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Al.Fisherman said:

10 months old gas...you got to be kidding. Gas without oil has a shelf live of about 6 months. With oil much shorter. The gas will evaporate and leave a thick oil residual behind. Start by cleaning the fuel system and fresh gas mixture. This includes dissemble of the carburetor. Use throttle body cleaner.

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Cool that will be the first thing I try tomorrow. Any ideas about why it's always been so hard to start? Last year I thought it was the carb so I bought a brand new one, that wasn't the problem, I switched the spark plug and that wasn't the problem. My other bike starts no problem, this one takes a few tries.

Pinoyxprss said:

My friends bike was the same thing, it's hard to start but once it starts turning it runs like a charm.

problem was, one the fuel/oil mixture was too thick...least for his bike, he was doing 30:1 ratio, switch it to 50:1, two, his spark cable wasn't connecting very well with CDI, I had to cut it a lil bit to expose more of the wire inside and screwed it back in the CDI, three..the spark plug was bad which you already replaced.

oh and I had to clean the head, it was full of gunk from too much oil and I leaned it out and now it runs like a champ.

Also if you clean out the head, make sure the head gasket is not shot so it doesn't lose compression.

And like what fisherman said, clean the fuel system..might as well clean the entire carb.


Have Fun
JD

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Ok I changed out the fuel and lowered the oil ratio. I took off the head and it was all black, I cleaned it out the best I could and put it back together. My motor still won't start.

It will start for a few seconds and then instantly die. I tried to get it started for about an hour driving up and down the street.

Now I'm resting for awhile maybe something will come to mind. Hopefully.

Oh yeah I swapped out the spark plug with the one on my other bike and still nothing.

I think the next thing I'm gonna do is swap the CDI.

rohmell said:

i think that is a good idea. Since you have a good running bike, you know everything on it is OK. Start swapping parts one by one from the bad bike into the good one until you find the part that is causing your problem.

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I switched the CDI and it started up, drove around for about 45 minutes and came home to tighten some things up. Got the things tightened up and drove up the block and it wouldn't start again.