Idles, but won't accelerate.

Not quite a motorcycle, but my snowblower did EXACTLY what you are discribing here with our bike. I could start it, it would idle, but if I did anymore than that it'd die. I drained the carb and fuel tank, mixed a new batch of 2cycle gas and it ran like new. /shrug

My vote is drain everything of fuel and try "freash" gas.

 

I don't think there's enough info to say for sure what it is...or isn't. But when I go back and read the original post, it sure sounds like 'classic' running out of gas to me. It's also one of the easier problems to verify or eliminate, and fuel samples can be taken at the same time. While clogged slow jets make a bike miserable to drive around the parking lot, they won't make it die on the freeway.

 

Wow, thanks everybody. So far the bike hasn't done this again. It started right up and ran great right out of the basement the day I went to fix it. Over the summer it was outside daily and it could have been water in the tank. I did replace the fuel filter (wasn't dirty at all, except for a TINY amount of rust in the creases) I can't see any rust in the tank though. It actually looks great.

The air filter was kindof cruddy, but not too bad.

One thing i did notice though was that there was a slit in my fuel line right beneath the outlet from the tank. I replaced the 6 inches of line. I did this after it started up and ran fine though. Could this have caused my problem? I assume since it's gravity fed before the pump that all this would cause is leaking fuel (never noticed any)

I've put 100 miles on the bike and it is running like a top. As much as I want to know what was up, it wouldn't bother me if the problem never came back!

Thanks everybody!

 

Maybe it was a blessing you know, the whole deal - because you found the split fuel
line and that could have cost you your bike, or you could have been seriously burned.

 

i'll take it as one. didn't even think about the safety aspect!