winter service

[jambo]

Originally Posted by branny

thanks, i will charge the battery tomorrow and check the coolant level with a torch.
i guess overfilling it wouldnt be too bad?

Let's get it right, hot coolant leaking over you doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.

[embee]

Coolant systems very often need a couple of hot/cold cycles to stabilise and purge all the air out (de-gas). Don't worry too much if it appears to drop the level a little to begin with, as long as it stabilises after a few runs.

When it heats up the gas gets pushed out of the rad cap past the spring loaded valve and bubbles out into the "make-up" bottle. This is why the tube goes from the rad cap to the bottom of the bottle. When it cools down it sucks coolant from the bottle to "make-up" the quantity in the active coolant system.

Providing you've more or less filled the system to the rad cap and got most of the air out, it'll sort itself out. When I've done my SV it has filled very easily with little or no trapped gas, unlike the rider.

As for the starting thing, sounds like classic choke cable probs to me, or water in fuel, or.................

i should definately investigate this choke cable thing.

how much breakdown of the bike is needed?

[yorkie_chris]

Depends on how solid the front screw is in, its a bit of a sod to access as well.

The best way is to remove the tank, airbox and throttle cables, then pull the carbs up on their side (a bit of fuel will leak, don't light up for a while untill its evaporated)
Then you can get decent purchase on the front screw or an impact driver to it or other means.

Also a bit of aluminium foil over the inlet tubes is good practice, keeps any bits of rust or muck that may fall out of the carbs from falling into the engine.

just had a look... pulled the airbox up and found both screws. had a go on the back one with some WD-40 first, no luck. can't imagine being able to get to the front one with an impact driver!!!

i am thinking i am going to need to take the bike to a garage and get the carbs balanced and the choke cables checked/changed.

[yorkie_chris]

Thats why you need to pull the carbs up, you can't get the front one out otherwise.

I'll do it if you don't mind a trek lol

hah... cheers mate, bit far mind

maybe i'll see how much an impact driver is and just get it done

sorry to keep revamping this thread, but i may as well keep the info in one place eh!

i have been looking into this choke problem i have been having, and i am slightly confused.

what is the usual damage on the choke plungers?
i can appreciate that the bike will have trouble starting in the cold if the plungers dont work, but what is happening is that once the bike is starting (ie fresh battery) the plungers appear to have operated sufficiently to keep tickover at 3000rpm.

when the bike is warm i can operate the choke open and closed fine.

to me, this means that things around the plunger are a bit messy at worst, so i wondered if a whole load of carb cleaner or similar product (recommendations please, halfords has a shedload) would clean the area up for the time being.

so... carb cleaner to fix my choke prob??

cheers again!

[yorkie_chris]

It's very rare the plungers fail to open.

Usually, crap tracks down the cables, into the plungers, causing problems.

Your thumb is more powerful than the spring, so they open fine, then don't close all the way, leaving a very rich mix low down.