Flooding Trouble, 1991 Honda VFR750

 

Greetings all.  I went to start my bike for this first time this
season
yesterday, and I flooded it badly, so badly that gas was dripping
on the ground from a tube routed thru the bottom fairing.  When
I tried again to start the bike after work (9 hours later), same thing
was happening.  So, after reading my Clymer's manual for what
to do with a flooding situation, I decided to turn off the fuel valve
(to the off position), located below the tank on the bike's left side.

So, I was able to start the bike.  After getting it running smoothly,
I opened the fuel valve and within seconds the engine quit.
When I tried to restart it, even though I was not working the
throttle,
I immediately smelled a lot of raw few.  So I repeated the process,
shut off fuel, started bike, ran engine till it quit for lack of fuel,
opened valve, smelled gas again, shut valve, started engine,
engine ran, opened fuel valve, engine quit.

So, I'm thinking I've got a stuck float valve in my carburetor.
Does this sound like a good diagnosis?  If so, how difficult
is this to repair?   Would you have to remove the carburetor
to do it?  What could I expect to pay for a repair at a Honda
motorcycle dealership?

One last question:  the engine makes a noticeable clicking
when I run it with the fuel valve shut off.  The second I open
the fuel valve, even partially, the clicking stops, but within
seconds,
the engine stops too.  Is it the fuel pump making the noise from
being run with the fuel valve on "off"?  Or is it engine (valve etc.)
noise caused by too much or too little fuel?  ( I would think an
excessively lean mix, since the fuel valve is shut off).

I've had the bike many years now, never had this trouble
before, and the bike was running fine when last operated
in late November 2009.

Anyway, I'd really appreciate if a rec.motorcycle reader who
knows the VFR750 engine could give me some free advice
on how to proceed.

Thanks,
John Czoykowski, St. Clair Shores, MI
(586)321-7395

 



You have four carburetors. One float valve may be stuck. Remove the
spark plugs and see which one is fouled to tell which carb has the
stuck float valve.


You might be able to free it up by rapping on the float bowl with a
screwdriver handle. Or, you might be able to flush out gum or varnish
that's causing the float valve to stick by squirting aerosol
carburetor cleaner like STP or GumOut down the fuel hose and leaving
it in the float bowl for at least half an hour.


Around $200 at $75 an hour.


Solenoid type electric fuel pumps go click-click-click until they fill
up the float bowl and the fuel shut off valve in the carb shuts off
the flow.

That doesn't sound like the source of your noise though. You might be
hearing valve noise from sticky valves that don't quite seat when the
engine is cold after being in storage for a while.

I hear that noise when I start up my Yamaha for the first time in the
spring...

It goes away after the engine warms up.

 



An easier way, if the bike has one drain pipe per carb (which is what
I've always seen) is to see which pipe is weeping fuel and then just
mark it with paint or something.

If you're going to be ripping float bowls off, there's no need to start
pulling out spark plus, *especially* on a VFR where some are damn hard
to get at.

Or just wiggle the pipe and see which carb it's attached to.

 

Yeah, this often works.

Or, you might be able to flush out gum or varnish

Rubbish.

BMW K1100LT  Ducati 750SS  Honda CB400F  Triumph Street Triple
Suzuki TS250ER GN250  Damn, back to six bikes!
Try Googling before asking a damn silly question.
chateau dot murray at idnet dot com

 

On Apr 4, 1:02 am, totallydeadmail...@yahoo.co.uk (Pink Panty Prancer)
wrote:


Why don't you just answer the OP's message directly? I don't have a
1991 VFR750 with leaky float valves, yannow.

 



Er, duh.


--
BMW K1100LT  Ducati 750SS  Honda CB400F  Triumph Street Triple
Suzuki TS250ER GN250  Damn, back to six bikes!
Try Googling before asking a damn silly question.
chateau dot murray at idnet dot com