I took the long way home from work yesterday. It was a beautiful day. All of a sudden the bike started to run roughly. I pulled off to the side of the road. I could get the bike to start, but it wouldn't stay running smoothly. I pulled the choke out and had the same issue. I knew that I wasn't low on fuel, but I checked anyway and it was ok. The same thing happened when I turned the petcock to reserve.

Within the minute or two that this took, a guy stopped and offered to throw the bike in the back of his truck and get me home. Sure nice when things work out like that.

I got it home and started to look into it. I am not a mechanic or anything so I was only looking for obvious things such as pinched hoses or anything loose. Everything looked fine.

I have drained the tank and refilled with fresh gas. Still have the same issue. What I did notice though was that if I leaned the bike to the right, I could get it to stall. When I did this there was also gas coming out of the carburetor drain hose. This doesn't occur if I lean the bike to the left.

The bike is a 2009 and I have done some of the normal mods: rejetted, kouba screw, FMF exhaust and drilled out the starter jet to .018. I have only put 50-100 miles on the bike since drilling out the starter jet.

Questions:

1) Is it possible that there is a piece of metal in the carburetor from when I drilled out the jet? If so, is this something I could get to by taking the carburetor apart?

2) I have read posts about the float sticking. Does that sound like my issue?

3) Should I be looking for anything else?

I am too new to know of any other questions to ask at this point. Any advice that can be sent my way would be appreciated. I do have the service manual and I am not afraid of learning the hard way. Thanks.

 

Sure sounds like a float level is off or the float pin seal isn't seating correctly....that's where I'd start looking.

 

I sucked some dirt thru the other day. The bike acted like it was running out of gas but stayed running just not well. I coutinued on working the throttle some to try and see if which jet it might be and it must have passed as it got ok and I haven't had any issues since.

 

when you rejet it, did you change the spring for the slide?
check to see if your slide is stuck in the UP position.
remove the boot going to the airbox and look inside, open the throttle and look past hte butterfly. I f the slide is open it is stuck. the slide should only open while the bike is running and creating a vacuum.

 

Could you also have a pinched carb or tank vent hose? I wouldn't think so if it ran okay for a while, but something to check. My bet is on the float...

 

Thanks for the replies. I will get some time tomorrow to start looking per the suggestions.

As far as when I rejetted, I don't recall if I changed a spring or not. I bought the Dynojet kit. I will dig it up tomorrow and review the instructions.

Probably a dumb question, but here goes: should the carburetor drain plug be loose enough to let gas out when I tilt the bike to the right? Per the manual it looks like you loosen it to drain the bowl. It doesn't seem like any gas should be coming out of it if it was tight. On the other hand, if it was loose, it would seem that I would be loosing gas all the time. Let me know if my thinking is incorrect.

Thanks again.

 

I doubt that the gas is coming from your bowl drain, if you tilt the bike, fuel will run out of a vent tube.

 

Before you chack float level, try just draining the carb's bowl. Water can get trapped in there and sometimes that's enough to clear it up.

 

your thinking is correct. a tight drain plug shouldn't let fuel out, even with a tilt.

 

You can also try turning off the gas and running the bike till it quits. Turn gas back on and see if its better. This works occasionally when there is a piece of dirt in the float needle and seat.

David