xtonyx Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 I've got a 74 (according to the title) xs360. Kick start only. I've run it a few times since I picked it up two weeks ago otherwise it sits on a motorcycle jack in my garage. It was idling poorly so I replaced the carb holders with new ones (xs400 ones from ebay) and put some cone filters on it (previous owner had no filters in the airboxes.. yay). This smoothed out the idle but it was still doing this weird thing where if you revved it it would hang at 3k and then drop randomly if i touched the choke. I pulled the carb the other night, pulled the covers off the top and bottom, pulled the springy floats out and stuff, sprayed it out with carb cleaner. Put silicon (gasket) grease on the rubber gaskets and put it all back together. Didn't try to crank it that night, it was kind of late. Left it on its kickstand. Tried to crank it up yesterday but it wouldn't fire. Kicked the headlight on and it slowwwllyy came on so I figured the battery was dead. Let it charge last night and came out today. Headlight kicks on fine but still no go. I've got strong spark but my plugs are coming out wet. Turned my pilot jet screws all the way in and then back out 1.5 turns. It's backfired twice on me but otherwise no go. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoda Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 Your float is stuck down and causing the carb to flood. Remove the float chamber and clean it all out and then refit it. Dry the sparky bits and then try to kick it over. Do not switch anything on like lights, first. Ensure that the fuel you have is clean and that there is no dirt in the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtonyx Posted December 20, 2007 Author Share Posted December 20, 2007 ill pull em apart again and see. i think i've lost my spark for some reason.. i think the stop/on/stop switch is intermittent. ick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtonyx Posted January 7, 2008 Author Share Posted January 7, 2008 alright.. fixed the spark issue. contact point was burnt up. kick kick kick, no start, plugs aren't excessively wet. backfires every couple of kicks. no dice. gonna make sure my gas is fresh i guess.. i've got no freaking clue at this point though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fosdyke Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 alright.. fixed the spark issue. contact point was burnt up. kick kick kick, no start, plugs aren't excessively wet. backfires every couple of kicks. no dice. gonna make sure my gas is fresh i guess.. i've got no freaking clue at this point though. Hi Ok you have a spark - is it a good fat blue one? If the contact point was burnt it could be the root of the problem, that or the condensor, although these rarely fail - did you replace the contacts or clean them? As a start you could just drop a small (empahsize small) amount into the cylinder(s) and kick it over - if it starts then you are looking at a probable fuel delivery problem or air leak at the carb - make sure the plug is dry before you drop the fuel in. Ideally you should keep an extinguisher handy at this point. If the bike still wont start this could be a timing problem - have you checked this? Check back after you have tried the above and we can go from there. Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtonyx Posted January 10, 2008 Author Share Posted January 10, 2008 well heres a dumb one.. bike wasnt running after carb tear down and clean out.. checked spark, checked fuses, had fuel.. backfired a couple times but wouldn't fire. left the bike alone for about a week and a half and when i came back to it checked those things again.. this time i had no spark and a fuse was toast (i'm assuming it was intermittent before and finally toasted where i could see it). checked spark and one side was sparking, one side wasn't. checked the coils and they were good to go. so i replaced the points with a set i had laying around and my friend fooled around checking all the wiring to the coils. put it all together, gapped the points, etc.. no dice. backfiring and nothing else. i was done kicking and went inside to play video games. went out last night. backfiring every other kick like before but this time i realized it was through the carb.. googled it and someone said "intake valve stuck open" but there was NO way. then i realized if it was firing on the intake stroke then it could blow gas back out the carb. what would cause that? my friend flipped the point leads to the coil packs around and it was firing my coils backwards. so i fixed the problem but he decided to screw with the coils. dum-dum. it's running... needs a little tuning but it's running. gonna get the rest of what im doing finished up then i'll have a fun toy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator drewpy Posted January 10, 2008 Moderator Share Posted January 10, 2008 well heres a dumb one.. bike wasnt running after carb tear down and clean out.. checked spark, checked fuses, had fuel.. backfired a couple times but wouldn't fire. left the bike alone for about a week and a half and when i came back to it checked those things again.. this time i had no spark and a fuse was toast (i'm assuming it was intermittent before and finally toasted where i could see it). checked spark and one side was sparking, one side wasn't. checked the coils and they were good to go. so i replaced the points with a set i had laying around and my friend fooled around checking all the wiring to the coils. put it all together, gapped the points, etc.. no dice. backfiring and nothing else. i was done kicking and went inside to play video games. went out last night. backfiring every other kick like before but this time i realized it was through the carb.. googled it and someone said "intake valve stuck open" but there was NO way. then i realized if it was firing on the intake stroke then it could blow gas back out the carb. what would cause that? my friend flipped the point leads to the coil packs around and it was firing my coils backwards. so i fixed the problem but he decided to screw with the coils. dum-dum. it's running... needs a little tuning but it's running. gonna get the rest of what im doing finished up then i'll have a fun toy. I met an old man a few years ago who slagged off the xs400 he had, saying it ran backwards!! then preceded to tell me he got the timing and leads all wrong. So it can and does happen....to the select few!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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