tasop7
Enjoying Life!
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2008
- Messages
- 234
- Reaction score
- 4
- Points
- 18
- Location
- Northwest Chicago suburbs
There's a long story behind this, but my bike has been sitting for about a year and a half. I needed new tires and a few other things and my bike sat at the dealer for quite a while (due to several reasons and problems), and it has been sitting in my garage as well. There have been several things that came up in life preventing me from doing anything with the bike.
So I finally freed up some time today and wanted to go give the bike an oil change since it's been sitting so long. I tried to start it up and it's a no go. I've read through other posts of people saying their bikes won't start, but didn't really find one where they said their bike sat for too long. I'm pretty handy and have worked on the bike several times in the past, but have never worked with the fuel system so some terms and parts might need to be explained to me.
I always keep my bike on a tender so I'm pretty sure the battery is ok (but anything is possible so I can't say the battery is perfect). When I turn the key, I hear the normal whine sound (which I guess is the fuel pump from what I've read). If I try to start it, it keeps turning over as long as I have the button pushed, but it doesn't start. I tried a few times for about 5 seconds or so, but then stopped thinking it might be good to ask for some advice.
I've read a lot about people mentioning water / condensation in the tank. I stopped trying to start it thinking that I could cause issues with other parts of the bike if the gas was bad. I would say the tank is about 9/10th full, but has the same gas it did from over a year ago. Several veterans here have ridden quite a long time on their original spark plugs, but I am due for a change according to the manual (the bike has 11,000 miles on it on I'm on the original set).
So if this was your bike, how would you go about this? What are the things you would definitely do first (like empty the tank and put new gas in, etc), and what are the things you would start checking? The bike ran perfectly before it sat and always fired right up.
Thanks guys! :thumbup:
So I finally freed up some time today and wanted to go give the bike an oil change since it's been sitting so long. I tried to start it up and it's a no go. I've read through other posts of people saying their bikes won't start, but didn't really find one where they said their bike sat for too long. I'm pretty handy and have worked on the bike several times in the past, but have never worked with the fuel system so some terms and parts might need to be explained to me.
I always keep my bike on a tender so I'm pretty sure the battery is ok (but anything is possible so I can't say the battery is perfect). When I turn the key, I hear the normal whine sound (which I guess is the fuel pump from what I've read). If I try to start it, it keeps turning over as long as I have the button pushed, but it doesn't start. I tried a few times for about 5 seconds or so, but then stopped thinking it might be good to ask for some advice.
I've read a lot about people mentioning water / condensation in the tank. I stopped trying to start it thinking that I could cause issues with other parts of the bike if the gas was bad. I would say the tank is about 9/10th full, but has the same gas it did from over a year ago. Several veterans here have ridden quite a long time on their original spark plugs, but I am due for a change according to the manual (the bike has 11,000 miles on it on I'm on the original set).
So if this was your bike, how would you go about this? What are the things you would definitely do first (like empty the tank and put new gas in, etc), and what are the things you would start checking? The bike ran perfectly before it sat and always fired right up.
Thanks guys! :thumbup: