Bad start makes it harder to start

So... that's a bad title. Here's my issue...
Bike runs great. Ever since the carb rebuild and just getting her back on the road, she's been great. The main issue I'm having is the 1st start after she's sat overnight or a ling period during the day.

Scenario 1: When I go to start, I pull the choke out and crank. She'll fire right up, but RPMs will fall right away and die if I give it no gas. If I go to restart it, it'll just crank and crank and crank, sometimes get a little sputter like shes about to fire up, but won't. Sometimes she will after a while, but most of the times I just end up killing the battery before that happens.

Scenario 2: Same as above, but this time I rev her up as soon as the engine fires on the first crank, if I don't hold the throttle open enough, she'll run for a few seconds and end up dying. Again as above, will not start right back up for awhile then.

Scenario 3: Crank and keep the throttle open a good bit to keep the rpms up, and as long as she runs for over 10 seconds, I can shut her off and then restart pretty much no problem.

Question is... why? What's causing this to happen? Why can on the 1st start of the day, she fire right up but then she wont if it dies? Thanks!

Have you checked the condition of your battery? When my battery was bad it would take a while to start and need the throttle to be cracked open to run

The battery is less than 2 years old and the fluid level is good. I've considered getting a new battery just because I've never liked this one and seems like I've had to charge it way too many times since I've had it.

But like I said, first crank the thing will fire right up. The battery doesn't become an issue until after it fails the first time and I've been sitting there cranking it over and over again.

Try partial choke instead of full and see if it's any better.
It sounds to me like it's getting way too much fuel on initial start.

My bike will do something similar if I forget to drain the carbs and the bike sits for a couple months. Fires off and then takes a few minutes to coax it to life. I know it's because the crap fuel was beginning to solidify in my carbs blocking passage ways. Other than that, mine starts instantly every time.

I saw a couple posts saying something similar about doing only half choke. I'll give it a try. Should I do half choke, and just crank it and give some gas when it fires or open the throttle a couple times before firing?

When I changed the oil this past weekend I checked to see if there were any gas in it (like if the motor was flooding and fuel was going past the rings), but found none in there, so at least it's not washing out the rings.

Tried the half choke last night and it sounds like it wants to turn over more, but still didn't. Initial crank fired up fine, died, wouldn't start afterwards. Killed the battery then.

I hooked up the trickle charger to it again finally so going to keep that on there and see if this helps any.

Also having an issue where I think it might somewhat be related in not getting the motor fired... when I'm cranking it, sometimes it sounds like the starter motor is cranking fine, then it just spins like it becomes disconnected from the motor/tans. I stop cranking, wait for the starter to stop spinning and then crank again and it'll start cranking the motor fine. Sometimes it'll do the same thing again, sometimes not. Ideas?

You should start by replacing the battery (or at least testing its voltage). Every time you charge it the battery becomes less able to work properly. Everything might look fine but it may not have the cranking amps required to turn the bike over.

I had this same issue on my old xj and it was the battery. I changed it out and fixed the problem. The more you drain a battery and recharge it the weaker it gets. I noticed if I left to petcock on it would sometimes give me a hard way to go..

david-b wrote: The battery is less than 2 years old and the fluid level is good. I've considered getting a new battery just because I've never liked this one and seems like I've had to charge it way too many times since I've had it.

But like I said, first crank the thing will fire right up. The battery doesn't become an issue until after it fails the first time and I've been sitting there cranking it over and over again.

I would also check that you bike is charging correctly also. I know you had to charge it up because of your problem. But if you had to charge it even after you were riding it, maybe the bike isn't charging correctly. This can be done easily