[bazill13]

Bike doesn't want to climb hills, or even what most would call a leisurely incline, it just bogs down and gradually dies. Twisting throttle makes no difference, no revs.

The other day I was riding around an empty carpark doing some slow practice, and after about 20mins, I stopped and went to take off, and bike would not rev, no amount of throttle would make a difference, and it gradually spluttered to a halt.
The temp guage was up to about 1/2 way, and the fan kicked in.
After resting for about 1 min, the bike started and reved okay so took off for home, but after about 30 secs it did it again, wouldn't rev (while pulling out of the carpark junction).
Waited about 30 secs and managed to pull away, but going up the slight incline to home, just gradually lost power.

Thought it might be a fuel supply issue, so drained fuel, to check fuel filter, but couldn't get one of the bolts off that holds the fuel tap on, will have to check later when I eventually get that out, but fuel pumps out at required rate (600ml/min), but it seems to be in spurts & is a broken stream (if this makes sense), it's not a constant solid flow.

Took carbs off and gave a thorough clean (were pretty good as only cleaned them a couple of weeks ago)

Throttle slide holders are new, spark plugs are new, but checked anyway (cylinders 1-3 were fairly clean when checked, but no.4 was black & sooty)

Does it sound like a fuel issue, or could it be electrical, as I notice that when I started up the other week when I was low on fuel and the amber light was on, that after startup the amber light was faint and gradually brightened over 20-30secs)

Any ideas?

[wheeler727]

bazill13, on Dec 14 2009, 08:32 AM, said:

Bike doesn't want to climb hills, or even what most would call a leisurely incline, it just bogs down and gradually dies. Twisting throttle makes no difference, no revs.

The other day I was riding around an empty carpark doing some slow practice, and after about 20mins, I stopped and went to take off, and bike would not rev, no amount of throttle would make a difference, and it gradually spluttered to a halt.
The temp guage was up to about 1/2 way, and the fan kicked in.
After resting for about 1 min, the bike started and reved okay so took off for home, but after about 30 secs it did it again, wouldn't rev (while pulling out of the carpark junction).
Waited about 30 secs and managed to pull away, but going up the slight incline to home, just gradually lost power.

Thought it might be a fuel supply issue, so drained fuel, to check fuel filter, but couldn't get one of the bolts off that holds the fuel tap on, will have to check later when I eventually get that out, but fuel pumps out at required rate (600ml/min), but it seems to be in spurts & is a broken stream (if this makes sense), it's not a constant solid flow.

Took carbs off and gave a thorough clean (were pretty good as only cleaned them a couple of weeks ago)

Throttle slide holders are new, spark plugs are new, but checked anyway (cylinders 1-3 were fairly clean when checked, but no.4 was black & sooty)

Does it sound like a fuel issue, or could it be electrical, as I notice that when I started up the other week when I was low on fuel and the amber light was on, that after startup the amber light was faint and gradually brightened over 20-30secs)

Any ideas?

Noticed there seemed to be no reply. Did you solve your problem?

[.44 caliber]

it should just come down to either dirty fuel or bad spark what condition are your leads in mine where pretty farked you might want to check for jump to as i had to rplace my coils and leads and yes it does also sound as if your fuel pump is faulty

[bazill13]

Thanks for the replies .44 caliber & wheeler727. Seems to be going okay now (powerwise anyway). I think it was a fuel supply issue, this is what I did:

Last time the lack of power issue happened, I put some carb cleaner in the fuel, and took the carbs off and removed & cleaned all the jets again, but this time I took out the needle valve seat (Saw it before when cleaning but didn't know it came out). After cleaning the valve seat & the little dome mesh filters I reassembled everything and started it up. I didn't take it for a ride, but after about 5 mins of idling, I shut it down and looked down at the carbs and notice underneath the carbs was wet with fuel. I thought I hadn't tightened one of the float bowls & it had leaked, so off came the carbs again, but the screws for the bowls weren't loose. Anyway after refitting the carbs, I flicked the ignition on & the fuel pump did its thing, and then fuel just started pouring out of one of the carb overflows (I've since found out there were meant to be overflow hoses connected to the carb). Anyway, I determined that one of the needle valves was leaking (by swapping the valves over, the other carb starting spewing fuel).
So after replacing the needle valves, seats, o-rings and mesh filter, seems to have fixed this issue, so I would assume that the was blocked fuel supply, I'm assuming the little mesh filters were blocked up or something was stuck in the valve seat and after cleaning these, a lot more fuel was getting through resulting in the problem with the needle valve becoming apparant.
Mind you this is only my guess on what happended.

So this seems to have fixed the power loss issue, but something's still not right, bike's hard to start from cold.
Have to have choke full on (if don't have choke on, it does 'catch' at all, just cranks over), try to start, it 'catches' but then dies pretty well straight away after releasing the starter. After a few more goes of this, it starts but have to give it some throttle to hold the revs steady, then after a min or so, can gradually release throttle until fully released and can use choke somewhere between 1/4 or 1/2 to keep idling around 1500rpm until warmed up then can turn choke off, then idles around 1600 rpm nicely.

I'm going down the electrical path because I don't get the strong blue spark that everyone talks about, seems to me to be more of a yellow. I'm going to start by replacing the spark plug leads, do they detach from the coil packs, or do I need to buy new coils & leads together from the suzuki dealer?
Is there a systematic way to track down a fault in the electrical system?

Also have pretty, nay very, sucky fuel mileage, orange light comes on around 40km mark (which is 6L i think from memory), turn to reserve around the 80-90km mark. There was also strong fuel smell, so thought it was running way rich, so moved (lowered) the jet needles from middle position to 2nd position, but stil hard to start and just got the orange light yesterday after 40kms.

Could the fuel tap be leaking internally & the fuel is evapourating from inside the lines/fuel pump/carb??/ there's no visual evidence that fuel's leaking.

Probably should just take it to a mechanic, but I like to learn, and I'm certainly learning.
Turned into a bit of an essay, but hopefully it may help someone else