93 VFR won't idle without choke

Hello fellow VFR worshippers!

I just purchased a nice 93 from a dealer in PA and had it shipped out to me in central CA. I was told that it ran great. I even spoke to the owner (it was a consignment deal) who told me all about the bike and I felt good enough about the deal to go for it. Well I finally get it and the darn thing will only run if the choke is at least half way on. It runs a little rough and smells like maybe it's getting too much fuel, but I chalked that up to having the choke on. The gas smells fine, but I intend to dump it as the bike was sitting at the dealership for six months. If it did indeed run fine before getting shipped to me what could be wrong now that is causing the problem I have?

Thanks for the help!!

 

I'm new to the forum but not new to this problem. My son had a 50cc quad. I changed carbs and filled it with fresh fuel before he rode it. Then it sat for nearly a year. It had the same issue as your bike. It seams that the ethanol blends that are being made now turn to crap pretty quickly. You will most likely find that the idle jet in one or more carb is plugged up. If you remove the carb and have the jet cleaned with a broach it will work fine. The size is very small and a friend turned me on to the ones he gets from the auto paint supply store for cleaning his paint guns. Worked like a charm.
Best of luck.... Chris

 

Steel guitar string should work fine too for poking through the jets. You would need a "High E" string in either 9 or 10 gauge. You could also try soaking the jets in some carb cleaner and then blasting them with some compressed air.

Rollin

 

Classic symptom of clogged pilot jets--a #13 guitar string works for the #38 pilot jets. Be sure to remove and clean the mixture screw while you're in there too, which may require drilling the caps if they have never been tampered with...plenty of detailed info and pictures on cleaning carbs on this site if you do a search on that term.

 

May be able to get away with just taking out the fuel-mixture screws (should have the needle jet, spring, metal washer, o-ring) if any of these are missing you need to correct it. After you take these off with carbs still in situe, you can blow some carburetor cleaner in each hole and finish it off with some compressed air. Button every thing up and see how it runs. If it fail, you have to pull the carburetors off and do a proper service as stated above.

 

what they all said... but I am surprised that the dealer didn't run the bike while it was at the Stealership.....

 

Don't know how far away you are from Sacramento but if your close enough I can come by and lend you a hand.

 

Another vote for plugged up pilot jets. Caused by sitting to long. Very nice of toe cutter to offer his help.

 

And all you have to do is not use American currency, just the universal currency of Beer.

 

Thanks for all the great replies!

Is there any chance that this issue will clear up after I run a tank of fresh gas through it? Maybe add a fuel injector cleaner or some other sort of additive?

It runs pretty good after I get it over about 2K RPM. It just needs the choke on half way to maintain idle.

Just curious because it's going to run me $550 to have my mechanic go through the carbs.

THANKS!!

 

Wow find a different mechanic. When i work on someones bike and do a complete cleaning and tuning of the carbs the most charge is about 50 a carb so 200 for a bank of four. 550 is way way to much. I think there are a couple guys on here you can send them to that are very reasonable. But yes they need cleaning sorry they wont fix themselves no matter how much stuff you put in the fuel.

 

I only charge 18 cold beers for such work......... :crazy:

 

:wacko: Yep its a deal, and you could be with someone famous...

 

sure read a lot of members running alcohol blended fuels here.
at least here in SD we have straight unleaded, unleaded premium, 10% blend or E85.
i wont use that blended crap in any of my bikes or LAWN MOWER for that manner also!!
for starters 10% blended fuels or higher will reduce your mileage and power output over your basic 85 ron unleaded fuel.
also make your motor run hotter 2!! gas burns yellow, alcohol burns blue. blue flame is hotter!!
just to make as much power off of alcohol to equal pure petrol you have to step up your jetting by 15% or more just to match low octane fuel, even tho alcohol has a higher octane rating.
at least the 15% jetting increase refers to my race vehicles. (mustang) running on alcohol
sorry for high jacking this thread! lol

 

First grab a can of carb cleaner or panther piss and spray around the rubber boots between carbs and intakes. You probably will notice a rpm difference this tells you there's a leak around that area. If so try to(gently) tighten the band clamps that hold them on. If you have to choke it to get it to run your air/fuel mixture is off. Your getting the fuel you need but to much air. That's why when you choke it runs.