Hello from central NC

[Hydrilla]

Hi all, glad to be here. I joined because we just bought my wife's first bike, an '07 GZ. She is 5' with shoes on, and that seriously limits her choices, for a first bike at least. She crawled around on a number different bikes, and this is the one she felt the most comfortable on. We have been doing some parking lot training, and she is taking the MSF class in a few weeks.

This bike is pretty darn cherry for its age. The previous owner had some recent health issues so it has been sitting a while, and we are working through getting it back running right.

All of the carb bikes I've had in the past, including my current one which is a KLR, had a petcock with Reserve, On and Off positions, and I foolishly assumed this one was the same. I rode it home a few days ago with the bike in the Prime position, and you all know what that does. Once I realized my mistake, I tried to run it in the On or Reserve positions, and it would sputter and die in a matter of seconds. I soon realized that was caused by the vacuum hose being completely disconnected from the petcock.

It was still running poorly, and hesitating especially at lower an mid RPMs, so I automatically assumed carb issues. I tried Seafoam but it didn't seem to help. Today I removed the tank and checked the petcock screens, and they are clean. I pulled the carb and found the pilot jet and one of the other jets (didn't read which one was which) were clogged badly- no daylight, and a fair dose of green algae-looking slime on them, and in the bowl.

I'm soaking those parts now, and hoping this fixes the rough running issues. I think it will. Other than that the bike is doing great. I read that there's an adjustable brake lever so we'll be buying that, she has a hard time reaching. I haven't found an adjustable clutch lever yet, does anyone know if there is one compatible with the GZ?

The only other mod I did was switch the horn with a 112db PIAA that I had in my parts stash, it makes quite a difference.

I didn't mean to be so long-winded, but thanks for having me here. My wife will say hello at some point but she's not much of a discussion board person.

Here she is in her first parking lot practice session, you can see/hear the bike hesitating/surging pretty easily.