Help First ride in the rain... Problems.

G'day Team

Kawasaki balius 1994. First ride in the rain on the highway. 15kms later noticed the speed dropping back to 80kmh in sixth gear at wide open throttle. Dropped it down a gear nothing changed. Dropped it down another nothing changed. Started jolting and bogging down 4km later. Revs were going down gradually from about 8grand to 7grand to 4grand.....in about 1minute so quite gradual. Decided to pull over and engine died just as I slowed down. Tried starting it no luck. Retried no luck. Tried push starting it thinking it might be flooded no luck. Sat there in the rain for 2 minutes and tried switching on to the reserve tank thinking I ran out of fuel. No luck. One last try... Put some choke in with the bike on the reserve tank and thank ***k it fired. Rode normally to the gas station and seemed like there was plenty of gas left.

There was quite heavy rain with a decent amount of surface water whole gear was soaked.

Thoughts team? Water injestion killing my bike? Moisture screwing with the coils or plugs? Water in the fuel tank from the rain that stuffed it? I have no idea where to start but surely I should be able to ride my bike in the rain?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks again

 

Took it out today for a ride on the highway.

Good for 20kms then throttle response seemed very sluggish. 1km later bike bogged down completely and died. Flicked to reserve tank and rode back to fuel station ok. Filled it up and tried again. No luck =( throttle response is very sluggish again and seems to be grunting and engine vibrates quite substantially. Originally thought it was fuel supply problem?

Any ideas?

 

Cheers @Linkin .

Seems like the exhaust pipe coming out of cylinder 1 is much colder than the other 3 just after starting. Had a look at the plug cap on cylinder 1 and realised it wasn't attaching to the spark plug properly so changed it (SD05F) which are the long straight type. Bike seemed to run a bit better. I don't know much about how bikes are meant to run on 3 or 4 cylinders but I really felt that it was running better. A couple of kms of test riding with a grin on my face it all went downhill =( again wide open throttle in third gear bike shakes and vibrates very badly. Strange grunting almost constant backfiring in quick succession noise coming from exhaust. Would not rev past 6k and holding at wide open throttle for a while sometimes it would stagger and pick itself up like a human regaining consciousness and it would feel like it's would almost wake up and think Oh **** hang on I'm at WOT... and gather it's thoughts then just boost. Change gear then drop it down again to 3rd.. Same problem as before. Very frustrating.

Okay here's the strangest part. I took off the fuel tank and checked the petcock and everything seemed fine. I realised there was a fuel line coming from the carbies that was just sitting there not attached to anything. So under my fuel tank there is an opening where this fuel line from the carbies should be attached? Is it the return fuel line? I have no idea what this is. Okay so I attached it and test rode it again, nothing changed bike still bogging down and same problem. I don't know what I was thinking or came over me but I had a look again at that mysterious fuel line. I realised that even though I attached it back to the tank it was sitting in a position where halfway down the line there was a substantial kink in it so thought okay let's straighten the tube out and try again? For the love of God I have no idea why but my bike ran perfectly after that????????? What on earth? I thought this was a fuel return when the carbies overflow and it was just dumped out somewhere fro more carbs?

I might be wrong I might be dreaming and I've only ridden it for 10mins after fixing the kink but my bike seems to be fine? Surely not?

Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks team

 

@zixxer .....

The damn vacuum line! of course mate. I learn something every post on here!! and here I was thinking what on earth is this loose line doing from the carbies just poking out to nowhere.....Every single time ive broken down and taken apart my bike to figure out what was wrong, either the vacuum line was not attached to the tank or it was kinked after i took the fuel tank off.

I hope this is the problem. So far so good when it is not kinked! I will try cut it back like you say or reposition it somehow. Its annoying as I work 100km from home and spend 4 days a week here so have not been able to trust my bike to make the trip here and be reliable here.

I get back in 2 days and will fix the kinks and hopefully i should have no more problems.

 

@Phil

Question: Does the vacuum line that comes from the carbies have to be connected to the fuel tank (the connection point is directly underneath the centre of the tank, NOT on the petcock). Or can it be left unconnected to atmospheric. I opened the fuel cap on the tank and spotted a slim solid tube like piece straight from the bottom of the tank where the vacuum line seems to connect to and running all the way up to the top of the fuel tank.? What is this? and why does my vacumn line connect to this tube if it does at all?

I could be wrong but the first time i broke down I might have left the vacuum line disconnected completely to atmospheric. I managed to ride for 20 or so Kms then it bogged down and died. My question is: is there any way my bike would have run with the vacuum line coming from the carbies not attached to the fuel tank? or am I completely wrong here and I mustve connected it but the kink in it would have made the bike run fine for 20km then decided to die on me?

 

Completely confused now =/

I will take some pictures and show what I mean when I get back in 2 days.

@GreyImport
Your diagram says Vacumn lines but I can only really see one of those straight from the carbies, what I did with it is most likely plug it into the ending point at the bottom of the tank of the pipe for water overflow.

I have 2 fuel lines from my petcock. One is thicker than the other. I thought the thicker one was for the ON position and the thinner one is for the RES position?? If the thinner one is the vacuum line like you say, then what on earth is this damn lone tube coming out of my carbs?? I dont actually even know if its coming out of my carbs...the connection seems to have play in it almost like a plastic joint with a rubber wriggle to it. so Im guessing it is not coming out from my carbs as I would expect a more solid connection? ahhh have no clue. Sorry if im being a pain. All the comments are appreciated.

 

Guys I think I've figured it out.

So my mate bought back the bike when I first bought it and rode it 250km back no problems

The only time I've had problems is after I've taken the fuel tank off and checked the air filter. After that it all went downhill. So I've traced back my footsteps. On the air filter box or housing or whatever you call it there is two plugs for tubes to go into. When I put the bike back together I was really confused as to why there was two of these plugs because I could only visually find one tube to plug into the housing. The tube seems to come from the 3rd and 4th carbs it's one tube only for the both of them so I'm guessing this is the air supply to the carbs??

Well damn then. The mystery hose I've been plugging into the fuel tank water drain must be the second bloody air supply from the 1 and 2 carbs!!!! If I plug this into the se in plug on the air filter box then maybe just maybe my bike will be back to normal again?????

The symptoms I felt when it was dying was overly rich? Strong smell. Backfiring. Rumbling. Grunting. No response from throttle initially then slowly spluttering to life and reving up.

Could I have been running on limited air supply on carbs 1 and 2 this whole time because this mystery hose was constantly plugged wrongly into the fuel tank or kinked and not into the secind plug of the air filter box??

Am I and idiot? Or am I an idiot? Or am I still an idiot and what seems common sense to me above is completely wrong.

 

Phew

Yeah its doing my head in. Does what I said above makes sense @kiffsta??

I won't get a chance to check it out untill tomorrow night so hoping I'm o nah right track. Air hoses to the carbs plugin into the air filter box?