Hello everyone!

[Liggett]

Hello everyone, my name is Ryan I'm 23 and from MN. I just got my first bike a few weeks ago and got it going but it needs a little tlc and I'm just looking for some tips and what not. I am a auto mechanic by trade but new to bikes. I'll give you some details...It has different exhaust on it, not sure what it is or where it came from, everything else is stock. I put a battery in it and some fresh gas and she fired up. I took it out and about 5 miles later it started dying when I wasn't giving it gas then was hard to start. I noticed the left air filter smelled like gas much more than the right. Also before i got back home i had it on the kick stand idling and when i got back on and stood it back upright the idle changed (it was leaning left on the kick stand). The left side exhaust also heats up ALOT quicker than the right. From all this I would think that the left carb is running way to right and possibly even a float sticking or something. Right now I'm looking at it and it seems like that float is sticking so correct me if I'm wrong but would that be the needle and seat? Thank you guys and looking forward to meeting you all!

 

[chris]

Hey Liggett, welcome to the site and welcome to the prestigious ranks of xs400 owners. First post some pics of the bike. Second clean the living bejeezus out of those carbs.

 

[Liggett]

Ok I just put a bunch of pictures up in an album, how do you put them in a post?

 

[chris]

in the reply section, click on 'go advanced'. scroll down to manage attachments and select the files you want from that window. there are some limitations on file size though.

 

[Liggett]

Pics before and after cleaning it up

 

[drewpy]

welcome Liggett, give the bowl a tap with a screwdriver handle. It might be just a sticking float needle and all you need to do is ride the bike to get it up to scratch.

 

[Liggett]

Ok i'll give that a try, Im waiting for my float bowl gaskets to get here so I have to wait till next week to ride it

 

[bcbobbers]

after cleaning the carbs I would probably re-seat the mixture screws and turn them both out about 2.5-3.5 turns out. Just to make sure each side is set to the same so one cylinder isn't getting more gas than the other. Also I know my bike needs to warm up for a few minutes before she wants to run good without the choke on. Just a couple things to think about. But yes I agree you might just need to ride it a bit also to get everything freed up. Also if you haven't already, I'd get some new plugs, ya never know how old the ones in there are.

 

[Liggett]

The plugs were black I got some new ones for it, once my gaskets get here i'm going to put it back together and ride it till its happy