new rider....up a creek

Hey!

I recently purchased a 81 Kawi kz440 as a starter bike. Went to take a look at it Saturday, looked great and started right up first try. Returned on Sunday, bought the bike, rode it roughly 30 miles back to my place and parked it where it sat until today. Today I started it up and rode it down the driveway, out onto the road.....where it died. Tried restarting it, wouldn't start.

I thought the tank was empty so I refilled it, still wouldn't start.

I thought it was oil and dumped in some that a friend had handy (Thank God!), still wouldn't start (D'oh!)

Any suggestions for starting the bike? Or what could possibly be wrong with the bike? I'm going to try cleaning out the fuel tank (rusty) and cleaning the carb (can't hurt can it?)

ramble on,

Blu.sky

rusty tank aquals clogged carbs equals wont start.

look and see if the previous owner has an inline fuel filter it could be clogged if not unscrew the drain plugs in the carbs if no gas comes out they are stopped up. as a diagnotic tool only let stick a pocket screw driver in ther and it may start running out let it run til it runs clear and then try to fire it up.

either way probably gonna need a carb clean

just my .02 I like to try and isolate the problem before tearing anything off I have seen alot of problems exasperated by pulling stuff off and fixing it before it is determined thats what needs fixed. good chance its the carbs but could be something as simple as plugs.

first determine if its the fuel like you suspect. then check for spark.

Good advise.

Also be careful what oil you dump in there.
kzrider.com/forum/2-engine/506892-re-kz7...st-engine-oil#507054

JD

Is the petcock turned on? Ed

I never use my run off run switch on my goldwing accidentally turned it off once took me 3 hours of diagnostics and a coil removal to figure out i had shut it off lol

:laugh: Petcock on and killswitch! Those are gotchas! Happens to the best of us...or so I've heard!

Kinda curious what made you think of the oil, not my first choice.

'81 still had a manual choke, have you put it in the "Start" position?
Does the bike turn over?

Hey guys!

The petcock has three setting RES ON PRI (counter clockwise) I tried starting the bike on all three, but upon further investigation realized that fuel never came out when I tried to start it in the ON and RES but some squirted out when I tried the 'PRI' setting. Kill-switch was definitely on RUN each try (That's on the right handle bar correct?).

I dumped some oil in because the little window on the motor showed there was no oil in there.

As for the choke, I'll have to check because I'm pretty sure that it was in the 'on' position when I first started the bike today, but after it died no variation of choke positioning would help. There could possibly be a 'start' mode I hadn't seen before.

Thank you all for the quick, helpful responses! As a new rider, I am much obliged!

Ramble on,
Blu.sky

With the bike parked (engine not running), and petcock in PRI position, loosening the carb drain screw should allow fuel to freely flow from the float bowl. Under these conditions, the fuel is supposed to exit from the end of the overflow hose; but if the overflow hose is missing, the fuel should exit from the nipple located on the bottom of the float bowl.

This simple test will determine whether fuel is traveling from inside the fuel tank to inside the float bowls.

Good Fortune!

One other thought....sounds like you have a vacuum petcock (my '79 kz400 did). This means you shouldn't get any fuel from the petcock unless the engine is turning over and drawing a vacuum on a vacuum line that runs between the petcock and a nipple on the discharge side of the carbs. If this has kinked or fallen off, you won't get any fuel flow.

Link14 wrote: One other thought....sounds like you have a vacuum petcock (my '79 kz400 did). This means you shouldn't get any fuel from the petcock unless the engine is turning over and drawing a vacuum on a vacuum line that runs between the petcock and a nipple on the discharge side of the carbs. If this has kinked or fallen off, you won't get any fuel flow.

do all of your testing on prime as patton said fuel should flow freely on prime

Hey everyone!
Sorry for the delayed response. Finally had a nice enough day for me to go outside and check out the bike. I ran the carb test on prime as recommended by Patton and fuel does trickle out from both float bowls. Any other ideas? I'm still lost as to what may be the issue here.

ramble on,
Blu.Sky