Re: what did you do in your garage today?
My 89 Kawasaki Ninja E500A has been running doggedly for a long time. I didn't even ride it at all last year. It nearly died two years ago, and with a twin cylinder engine, having one cylinder go down means real problems. I thought it might be electrical, rebuilt that system, no change. Plugs were fine, changed them. Rebuilt the fuel petcock. Pull the carb float bowls, cleaned, changed float valves, etc. Every time I thought I might be closer, but still it was like it was chocked off.
I haven't had the time to dink around with it for a while, having moved, worked on the house, other projects. The bodywork was off so I could work on the engine. I finally ordered some carb kits online and today I tore out the carbs, did a quick teardown, cleaning, media blasting, cleaning, twiddling, and reassembly. They are as rebuilt as you're going to make them and it cost me $30 plus about three hours. Having the tools to do all this in a nice dry garage makes all the difference. Previously I was working in a carport with a gravel base, so it was damp, cold, and nasty.
I found that the trouble side carb had a bent dampener needle valve that caused the whole thing to jam pretty easily with the damper nearly closed. That would seriously cause fuel problems. I was able to tweak it back into shape, rolling in my fingers to ensure shaft and tip were straight. Reassemble the carbs and the dampener moved very freely, no binding, same as the other side. Success!
Got it all reassembled, tried it- found the fuel petcock was clogged. Okay, tore that apart, treated it the same way, got good fuel flow. Reassembled, cranked the engine for what seemed like forever, but it did finally catch, cough, and come to life.
After getting the choke set, it idled and I checked the temp of the exhaust headers- one was hot and the trouble cylinder's exhaust header was... hot as well! Excellent! Confirmation it was actually running! This is a huge improvement.
Reassembled the bike to a running form to test and took it out for a quick test ride as a naked chassis. Of courseit had been dry all day and chose this moment to dump rain, but hey, that's part of the fun of motorcycles. I was able to rev it up readily and- whoa, okay, watch it, veeery easy to speed. Yeah, the throttle response is crisp, excellent acceleration, and is running better than it ever had since I owned it. That bent needle valve must have kept the dampener from opening fully all this time.
So now the bike runs great. I'm going to take advantage of it being naked to degrease and pressure wash the chassis, and try to fix an oil leak. Then I'll deal with putting the bodywork back on. There's a good chance I'm going to be riding to work this week, which would be aaaaawesome. Good weather coming up.
Happy times in the garage doing what garages were meant for.
, shoveled it out, disposed of it, sprayed bug killer and put some carpet fresh deodorant under there, then put the floor back in. I'm hoping that between the air circulation and carpet fresh, whats left of the smell will go away.
