Wilsons Sandbox

Hello KLRists,

I am in dire need of  help, I recently bought a 1988 klr 650 my first dual purpose bike prior to this i was a avid race replica owner, but after hiring a klr on vacation found out that more fun was to be had on a dual purpose machine.Anyway my problem is as follows while riding my new bike back from Maastricht to Amsterdam where i live involves quite a bit of motorway work this is where it started.When the bike reached 4.500 rpm it started missing and backfiring violently it was ok below this rpm and ok after 5000 if you can manage to get it past 5000 without going over the bars.on ariving home i replaced the spark plug and cleaned the airfilter but this made no differEnce,so i convinced myself it was a fuel problem so i emptied the tank cleaned it out, put on a in line fuel filter and had the carb overhauled, but still the flat spot did not clear up, finally i had a stage three Dynojet kit fitted and a kn filter as the bike has a marvin after market pipe and i thought maybe the previous owner did not upjet, and it was put on a rolling road,but the problem was still there, the dealer said it was definately a electrical problem, so i had the black box checked it was ok, then the coil that was ok also. I then decided to stop forking out cash and try to resolve the problem myself, where do i start? do i need a new wiring harness?also i have heard the electrical cable to the sidestand can cause electrical trouble,has any one had a simlar problem? 

  please help

 Duncan Elliott Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

--- In DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com, "zeemanscience" wrote:

> > KLR experts, > After being away for a week, I threw my leg over the bike and tried > to start her up. Fired a couple of times and died. This continued, and > eventually the bike warmed up enough that I could rev it and tried to > ride it and clear things up. It stalled out as soon as it went below > about 3K on the tach. Went inside disgusted. > Next day, still would not idle when starting with choke. > Disconnected the fuel line to make sure fuel was flowing to carb, and > it was (petcock seemed to work), as I thought it was fuel starvation. > This is an A12 I bought used, have no idea if valves were ever > adjusted, 2426 miles on this bike, of which only about 100 are mine, > as it seems to not run when I am ready to ride. I would much rather > ride this bike than scrap it, but am getting frustrated to that > point... Last problem you folks suggested added Seafoam to gas, I > couldn't find it but added carb cleaner, and removed the carb and > sprayed it clean with carb cleaner. It rode okay, but occasionally > stalled out at stop lights. Not a good feeling in the inner city with > traffic... Do I need to do something major to this bike to make it > reliable, or am I just doing something stupid here? Thank you, Jerry > > P.S. I am still not receiving my daily digests for some reason. I have > tried to swith to individual emails to see if that works.. >

Drain the float bowl to rule out condensation.

On Mon, Sep 03, 2007 at 08:34:05PM -0000, zeemanscience wrote:

> Next day, still would not idle when starting with choke. > Disconnected the fuel line to make sure fuel was flowing to carb, and > it was (petcock seemed to work), as I thought it was fuel starvation. > This is an A12 I bought used, have no idea if valves were ever > adjusted, 2426 miles on this bike

With that low mileage on a bike that old, the carb is almost certainly gummed up, and that would also explain all the symptoms you are seeing. I would strip and rebuild the carb, drain the tank and petcock, and flush the brake fluid and coolant, hoping that the corrosion hasn't set in too badly in the cooling system and brakes. You *might* clear the carb with Seafoam, but don't neglect the brake system. If the brake fluid has been sitting in there and never changed, it will have turned dark and absorbed a LOT of water. Water in your brake system is bad news, and can cause lots of corrosion. Low mileage older bikes are a far worse buy than one that has maybe 5-10K miles per year with good maintenance. Michael -- "Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID he just whipped out a quarter?" --Steven Wright San Francisco, CA

On 9/3/07, Michael Nelson wrote:

> You *might* clear the carb with Seafoam, but don't neglect the brake system. > If the brake fluid has been sitting in there and never changed, it will have

On my Concours - I dumped about an entire can of Seafoam in the tank so it was highly concentrated - than ran the bike for a few minutes to get the gas in the carb - then I let it sit overnight. That might help but I imagine you are going to have to remove it and tear it down - it's not too difficult if you go slow. As others have said - you probably want to flush and replace all the other fluids as well... Jim

Was the bike running ok before you left for a week ? Where do you keep it? Inside?Out? This may sound strange but what part of the country do you live in? Hot weather? --- zeemanscience wrote:

> KLR experts, > After being away for a week, I threw my leg over > the bike and tried > to start her up. Fired a couple of times and died. > This continued, and > eventually the bike warmed up enough that I could > rev it and tried to > ride it and clear things up. It stalled out as soon > as it went below > about 3K on the tach. Went inside disgusted. > Next day, still would not idle when starting > with choke. > Disconnected the fuel line to make sure fuel was > flowing to carb, and > it was (petcock seemed to work), as I thought it was > fuel starvation. > This is an A12 I bought used, have no idea if valves > were ever > adjusted, 2426 miles on this bike, of which only > about 100 are mine, > as it seems to not run when I am ready to ride. I > would much rather > ride this bike than scrap it, but am getting > frustrated to that > point... Last problem you folks suggested added > Seafoam to gas, I > couldn't find it but added carb cleaner, and removed > the carb and > sprayed it clean with carb cleaner. It rode okay, > but occasionally > stalled out at stop lights. Not a good feeling in > the inner city with > traffic... Do I need to do something major to this > bike to make it > reliable, or am I just doing something stupid here? > Thank you, Jerry > > P.S. I am still not receiving my daily digests for > some reason. I have > tried to swith to individual emails to see if that > works.. > >

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On Mon, 03 Sep 2007 20:34:05 -0000 "zeemanscience" writes:

> KLR experts, > After being away for a week, I threw my leg over the bike and > tried > to start her up. Fired a couple of times and died. This continued, > and > eventually the bike warmed up enough that I could rev it and tried > to > ride it and clear things up. It stalled out as soon as it went > below > about 3K on the tach. Went inside disgusted. > Next day, still would not idle when starting with choke. > Disconnected the fuel line to make sure fuel was flowing to carb, > and > it was (petcock seemed to work), as I thought it was fuel > starvation. > This is an A12 I bought used, have no idea if valves were ever > adjusted, 2426 miles on this bike, of which only about 100 are > mine, > as it seems to not run when I am ready to ride. I would much rather > ride this bike than scrap it, but am getting frustrated to that > point... Last problem you folks suggested added Seafoam to gas, I > couldn't find it but added carb cleaner, and removed the carb and > sprayed it clean with carb cleaner. It rode okay, but occasionally > stalled out at stop lights. Not a good feeling in the inner city > with > traffic... Do I need to do something major to this bike to make it > reliable, or am I just doing something stupid here? Thank you, > Jerry > > P.S. I am still not receiving my daily digests for some reason. I > have > tried to swith to individual emails to see if that works..

<><><><><><> <><><><><><> Jerry, Sounds to me like the idle jet is clogged. When the bike is running ok at 3,000 rpms or above it's off the idle jet and working with the needle jet and needle to meter fuel. When you close the throttle and lower the rpms the idle jet takes over. If the jet is clogged fuel can't pass and without fuel the engine won't run. You mentioned removing the carb and spraying it with cleaner. Did you spray it into each jet and make sure it was coming out the correct orifices in the carb body? I'd probably remove the idle mixture screw on the bottom of the carb and spray some cleaner through that port. To remove the screw turn it in while counting the number of turns until it lightly bottoms. Write that number down. I'm guessing it'll be between 1 1/4 and 1 3/4 turns unless someone has messed with the adjustment. After cleaning that port I'd return the mixture screw to it's original position. Install the mixture screw and turn it in until it lightly seats. Then back it out however many turns you've written down. Now is not a good time to be playing with adjustments. Do that after you've got the idle issue fixed. I don't think this is a big issue but probably just a fuel delivery problem. As an aside... someone mentioned putting a lot of Seafoam in their fuel tank. When I talked with the factory rep last winter I asked him if adding more would do more. He told me without hesitation it wouldn't do anything more. That it would just cost me more money. The correct ratio of Seafoam to fuel is 1 oz Seafoam to 1 gallon fuel. More isn't better but more won't hurt either. One more aside... I don't ever seem to have carb issues on my bikes. Some of them don't get ridden for 3-6 months at a time. What works well for me is turning off the fuel about 1/2 mile from my house. The bike runs fine getting to the shop where I turn it off. The fuel level is lowered a bit in the float bowl and I'm guessing the jets are sitting in very little fuel. If the jets aren't in fuel they can't/won't clog from gummy deposits. On the KLR it takes a bit of cranking sometimes to get started as I have to get enough vacuum to open the petcock and let fuel drain into the carb. But a healthy battery works well for that purpose. Once started the carbs are fine. That works well for me. Best, Jeff Saline ABC # 4412 South Dakota Airmarshal Airheads Beemer Club www.airheads.org The Beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota 75 R90/6, 03 KLR650, 79 R100RT

On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 08:16:25AM -0600, Jeff Saline wrote:

> Sounds to me like the idle jet is clogged.

It seems more likely to me that the pilot jet is clogged. You have to pull the float bowl off to get to the pilot jet. Michael -- "Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID he just whipped out a quarter?" --Steven Wright San Francisco, CA

On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 07:23:04 -0700 Michael Nelson writes:

> On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 08:16:25AM -0600, Jeff Saline wrote: > > > Sounds to me like the idle jet is clogged. > > It seems more likely to me that the pilot jet is clogged. You have > to pull the > float bowl off to get to the pilot jet. > > Michael

<><><><><><><><> <><><><><><><><> Michael, Good point. We're talking the same jet with me using incorrect nomenclature on this carb. : ) The book calls it a pilot jet (slow jet) and the screw is the pilot screw. I was calling them the idle jet and idle mixture screw. And looking at the factory supplemental manual it looks like the basic settings for the pilot screw depends on the year of the bike for US models. For A1 and A2s it's 1 3/8 turns out. For A3s thru A13s it's 1 7/8 turns out. Looks like A14-15s need 1 3/8 turns out. Maybe the later models use the same spec as I don't see any later info. I know someone is gonna find a later spec and correct me but that's what I'm seeing in my manuals. Those settings are a good starting point when you just don't know what your engine likes best. I don't care for the factory manuals for most stuff as you have to dig around to try to find the most recent information. I seem to somehow miss some of the info although it's usually just trivial stuff instead of critical info. I think it's easier to try to clean the pilot jet by blowing carb cleaner through the pilot screw hole and seeing if that works. If it doesn't then removing the pilot jet and cleaning the passage and jet orifice is probably the only remaining procedure. Thanks for pointing out the correct nomenclature. Best, Jeff Saline ABC # 4412 South Dakota Airmarshal Airheads Beemer Club www.airheads.org The Beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota 75 R90/6, 03 KLR650, 79 R100RT