Stored bikes

I have been helping a friend with selling his bikes. I have to pull the carbs on every one of the bikes so far. The gas that is in them has turned to crap even though they had seafoam added to the gas.

The crappy gas even has the fuel filters stopped up.

I pulled down a set of carbs off a CB750 and they were so bad the float needles were stuck. I had a hard time removing them. I cannot reuse them and had to find new.

I suggest to completly drain the fuel system for winter storage. Roy

what bikes does he have sale? Is that CB750 a supersport?

It is a 1974 CB750. Roy

It's a good point that Roy is making. I recently acquired an 82 CB750F and the float needles are similarly varnished in place. I have had a difficult time removing them without damage as well.

I think draining the float bowls for storage is a good idea. Do that and put some stabilizer in your tank and you should be good.

For the winter I add stabilizer and fill the tank. Then I run the bike for about 15 - 20 minutes every week or 2 so fuel moves through the carbs, oil stays on the cylinder walls, and the battery stays charged. If there's a day that's not bitter cold I try to take at least a short ride. The only time I had to remove & clean the carbs was one year long ago when I failed to do the above. Those carbs gunked up big time with a red lacquer and the bike wouldn’t run above 50 mph. Here’s a pic of a year or so ago when I was doing my 20 minute idle but not able to ride (guess I'm just a wimp in my old age):

wow your 650 is beautiful. can only dream of mine someday looking that nice.

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Damn...look at all that snow. The thought of snow is depressing...I should move down into OMR's part of the world I guess. Where do you live 650ed? That is a lot of snow there. Your bike does look fantastic! Needs a nice warm sunset behind it though! :laugh:

Something I read the otherday:

Ethanol In Gasoline Problems

Certain materials commonly used with gasoline may be incompatible with high-level ethanol blends, causing them to degrade and contaminate the fuel. Metals that have been shown to degrade over time in the presence of high-level alcohol blends include brass,(floats & jets) lead, zinc(carb bodies) and lead-based solder.

Nonmetallic materials that degrade when in contact with ethanol include natural rubber, polyurethane, cork gasket material, leather, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) polyamides, and certain thermoplastic or thermoset polymers.

On the other hand, unplated steel, nickel-plated steel, stainless steel, black iron and bronze have shown resistance to ethanol corrosion, with nonmetallic materials like reinforced fiberglass, Buna-N, Neoprene rubber, polypropylene, nitrile rubber, Viton and Teflon meeting acceptable usage standards with E85.

racer54 wrote: Damn...look at all that snow. The thought of snow is depressing...I should move down into OMR's part of the world I guess. Where do you live 650ed? That is a lot of snow there. Your bike does look fantastic! Needs a nice warm sunset behind it though! :laugh:

Thanks Cobura & Racer54 for the kind words. I'm in Maryland, and we've had a couple pretty bad snow storms the last couple years. I'm hoping this year won't be so bad. If only this "global warming" thingy would come my way I'd be happy. :woohoo: Ed

Hey 650ed, I used to run/ride mine periodically during the winter months, but I found that if I didn't run the thing for at least an hour, the bottom end stayed cold and then I'd get that nasty white milky oil film across my sight glass. So now I just change the oil, Sea Foam the gas, run it for a little bit and close the petcock long enough to drop the needles from their seats. Then I shut it down, pull the plugs and dribble some oil into the cylinders and hand crank it, put the plugs in, then cover it up and fight deep depression til spring.