Quote:
Originally Posted by Seeker
Have you had any thoughts about ethanol damage to the carbs?
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For what it's worth, I read all the material about ethanol's potential to cause problems with old strokers when I had my GT380. I owned the bike from 1998 to May 2015 and never had a fuel problem. The fuel tap never stuck nor leaked, o-rings never perished, etc
While trying to track down a mysterious popping / banging noise from one of the cylinders (it turned out to be carbon build-up where the chamber was welded to the header, a quick poke with a flexi drain snake eventually sorted it), I stripped the carbs to see if it was a blocked jet / air passage. They were spotlessly clean inside, no crud or residue.
I ran the bike on all sorts of unleaded (Shell, BP, Tesco, Esso), all of which were at least 5% ethanol.
I finally holed the left piston while giving it wide-open throttle in top gear on the local dual carriageway, but I know why that happened: the external crank seal on the generator (left) side had been weeping for ages, but the bike continued to run fine so I ignored it rather than starting a £1,500 engine strip & refresh. It finally gave up the ghost when I was giving it the berries.
So I suppose it was a fuel problem in the end, in the sense of "not enough of it for the left cylinder" (the centre and right cylinders' piston crowns & plug colours were perfect when I lifted the head, as it happens). Bloody two-strokes
