Slowwwwly Dying.....

[jamezgreen]

Hello, had my gz250 a few months now, it's always had a little trouble idling. Have to keep the rpm's up for a good while in the morning to keep it alive. My idle is set at a good level as far as I can tell but even when it's warm, sitting at a light the idle will very slowly creep down until the bike eventually dies. Once it does, it takes a good 20-30 seconds turning over with the starter before she comes back to life. (which is a long time when there's a pile 'o cars behind you ) I've checked the air filter and it looks great. Gonna take a peak at the spark plug tonight. Might need to clean the carb?? Little nervous on that one since I've heard bad stories of cleaners that eat all the seals away! Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

-James

[Water Warrior 2]

Did you check the inside of the air filter ? The air travels from the inside to the outside so the dirt will be on the inner surface. Of course check the plug and probably replace it if necessary. Run some sort of gas treatment throught the engine. You just may have some gunk in the carb that needs to be removed. Also, are you using a major oil co. when fueling up ? They will generally have a more refined gas with less impurities hopefully.
Oh, and check to make sure the choke is fully released at the carb end of the choke cable. If it hangs up a bit the engine will run progressively worse after it warms up to full temp. This would give the engine a rich fuel mixture and choke up the engine.

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by jamezgreen

Have to keep the rpm's up for a good while in the morning to keep it alive. My idle is set at a good level as far as I can tell but even when it's warm, sitting at a light the idle will very slowly creep down until the bike eventually dies.

No common carb. cleaner will "eat the seals". Berryman's B12 Chemtool is a good one; available at Wal Mart, auto stores and other places.

The GZ's do tend to be cold blooded but.........
Nowhere in your post did you mention the CHOKE. If you use it on the first start in the morning, it should also take care of "keeping the rpm's up" for you. About half is usually about right to get it to fire on the first or second revolution and then you can slowly reduce the choke as the idle speed increases.

If it stalls and dies at a light, what exactly makes you think the idle stop is set right? Does it work OK sometimes but not others ?? Can you manually keep the idle speed up by twisting the throttle a bit? That is exactly what the idle stop does.....it keeps the throttle open to a certain point.

It sounds to me like your idle stop is WAY too low......but that's just a guess at this point.

[music man]

One thing to note though, if you are going to take your carb off and take it apart and clean it with carb cleaner, then you need to make sure, and I mean damn sure that you get anything rubber off of it before you spray it or soak it in carb cleaner, because it will ruin anything like that it comes in contact with.


I put a carb in a bucket of carb cleaner one time and it still had the bowl gasket on it and I didn't notice, when I pulled the carb out the bowl gasket was about 3 times the size that it was when it went in. :oops:

[alantf]

With regard to the idle speed - Suzuki recommend 1200 to1400 rev/min. That means that it should sound nearly twice as fast as a car engine at idle. This doesn't mean that you MUST set it that high, just that it's a starting point for you to get it to what is right for your particular engine. :2tup:

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by music man

because it will ruin anything like that it comes in contact with.

That generalization is just not true. It depends on what KIND of carb. cleaner you use and how you use it. The stuff is not intended to be used full strength and actually works better if mixed at least 50/50 with gas for soaking.

If it were true, everybody who put Seafoam in their gas would end up with a ruined carb.........and probably other parts along the gas line too. Stuff designed to be mixed with the gas should NOT be a problem......unless maybe you are working on a vehicle that is 50 years old.

There are cleaners out there intended for "professional" use only and with that stuff, all bets are off.

Having said all that........if you have it all apart anyway, why would you put the rubber parts in the cleaner in the first place ??? :roll:

[VTXorcist]

Originally Posted by Water Warrior

Did you check the inside of the air filter ? The air travels from the inside to the outside so the dirt will be on the inner surface.

What's a good way to clean it if the inside is really dirty, or do you just need to replace the air filter? I noticed the service manual says not to use compressed air to clean inside the filter since it will just press the dirt further in.

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by VTXorcist

What's a good way to clean it if the inside is really dirty, or do you just need to replace the air filter? I noticed the service manual says not to use compressed air to clean inside the filter since it will just press the dirt further in.

You blow the air through from the outside-in......and then shake out whatever comes loose and tries to stay inside. It works the OPPOSITE of most filter applications.

But then, if it is REALLY dirty on the inside, you should get a new one. (They aren't cheap so you don't want to replace them just on a whim.) The last one I replaced didn't look too dirty but REEKED of oil/gas and the paper looked stained.

[music man]

[quote=Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by "music man":13aelp37

because it will ruin anything like that it comes in contact with.

That generalization is just not true. It depends on what KIND of carb. cleaner you use and how you use it. The stuff is not intended to be used full strength and actually works better if mixed at least 50/50 with gas for soaking.

If it were true, everybody who put Seafoam in their gas would end up with a ruined carb.........and probably other parts along the gas line too. Stuff designed to be mixed with the gas should NOT be a problem......unless maybe you are working on a vehicle that is 50 years old.

There are cleaners out there intended for "professional" use only and with that stuff, all bets are off.

Having said all that........if you have it all apart anyway, why would you put the rubber parts in the cleaner in the first place ??? :roll:[/quote:13aelp37]


:facepalm: First of all, I only specified using it in ONE WAY, and that was TAKING YOUR CARB OFF, and TAKING IT APART, Second, if you were to put your carb in a bucket of seafoam or berrymans, and left any rubber parts on it, the same thing would probably happen, and it is going to be really difficult to dilute "carb cleaner" in your gas tank if you take off the carb, I doubt that is gonna clean the carb you have sitting on your work table. I have seen hundreds of carbs and gas tanks that looked like someone poured a can of varnish in it (that is what happens to gas when it gets old) and stank like rotten eggs, and just pouring a little dash of seafoam/gas mixed together in it ain't gonna cut it.

And I have seen plenty of carbs that were so gunked up that even sitting in a bucket of FULL STRENGTH carb cleaner wouldnt clean them, and I damn sure wouldnt waste my time taking one apart and soaking it in a mix of gas and carb cleaner, if I was gonna do that I would just pour some in the gas tank and run it through the carb that way.

And last but not least, there are alot of rubber parts in some carbs that you can't just SEE right when you take it apart, it is real easy to overlook a rubber grommet or a rubber tipped needle valve, and it is not going to matter what KIND of carb cleaner it is, it will ruin it if it has any kind of prolonged contact with straight carb cleaner/spray.

So next time you may need to read my whole post instead of one little excerpt of it, and maybe you would understand what I am saying a little better, because I didn't make any GENERALIZATIONS.

[patrick_777]

...and every can of carb cleaner I've ever seen, said exactly what MM just said on the back of the can. Don't SOAK rubber parts in it. Soaking them in gasoline is also a bad idea as it is pretty corrosive to rubber over just a little bit of time. If you want to clean them, it's fine to shoot them with it, or work with them in cleaner, but don't soak them like you do the metal parts of a carb.