It snowed here yesterday. The salt and sand trucks are out, so the bikes get put away. Here’s what I did to the K1. I feel today’s crappy fuels, left in anything for more than 4-5 months, create problems. This routine only takes me 45-60 minutes and guarantees fast starts in April-May.
1. Pulled both fuel lines from the petcock and replaced them with an 8” loop of clear hose. If the valve “drools”, no mess. Repair later.
2. Popped off the 4 float bowls, cleaned and dried them out.
3. Dropped the floats, main and idle jets. Blew out the jets and let all the parts dry before reassembly. One emulsion tube had some crap in it. Soaked and cleared.
4. Filled the tank with zero ethanol fuel. I always drain it in the Spring and “share” it out across our cars and garden equipment. Fresh fuel goes in when I “first start” the bikes.
5. Pull the battery. It sits on a shop shelf, charged up every 6-8 weeks.
6. My shop never freezes, so up on the centre stand, indoor cover.....
Anybody do anything else they feel is a “requirement”?
HERE'S MY SHUTDOWN ROUTINE FOR MY 79 CBX. WORKS ON ALL MY OTHER BIKES TOO.
Shutting down the bike for a few weeks or for the season/winter:
THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO TO MAKE SURE THE BIKE WILL RUN PROPERLY WHEN YOU WANT TO USE IT AGAIN. IF YOU DO THIS PROCEDURE, WHICH ONLY TAKES ABOUT 10 MINUTES, YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE CARBS.
Modern gasoline has ethanol in it. Ethanol will gel up inside the gas tank and carburetors within a few weeks’ time. The best thing to do if you’re not going to use the bike in a few weeks is to purge the carburetors of ALL fuel. It’s easy.
1. First, run the bike for a couple minutes to warm it up, you want to make sure you can start the bike and it’ll start right up in a few minutes when you’re doing this procedure.
2. Turn the petcock on the gas tank to the OFF position (you should always do that after riding anyway.) Anyway, turn the petcock OFF. Put the bike on the center stand (NOT sidestand).
3. There are small brass screws on the bottom of the float bowls for the carbs (see first photo below). Find a flat head screwdriver that’s thin and long (so you can get to the inner ones). Turn the screws about 1-1/2 turns out and no more on all six of them. This will drain the fuel out of the carburetor bowls. There are two drain tubes that will leak out the gasoline onto the ground so you’ll want to do this on concrete or put something under it to catch the fuel.
4. YOU ARE NOT DONE YET! Draining the bowls is not sufficient. Once the tubes have stopped peeing out the gas, close the 6 brass screws. Do NOT tighten them like mad, they are a tiny brass needle-nose that shuts off the fuel and overtightening will ruin them. Run them close until you feel them touch, then just a tiny snug. The needle does the sealing.
5. Now, set the choke lever on the handlebars fully closed, like you’re cold-starting the bike. Turn the key on, and now hit the starter. The bike will run for a second or two, then quit.
6. NOW you’re done. What you did in the last step was, by setting the choke ON and starting the engine, you have pulled all the residual gasoline out of the tiny little passages inside the carbs, including the choke circuits. The carbs have a great number of tiny tunnels that gas flows through, brass pieces with tiny holes that manage distributing the right amount of fuel and air at the right time, etc. (see second photo below). If you DON’T do that last step to clear the carbs, the ethanol in the gasoline will gel in a couple weeks and plug up those little tunnels and brass bits and you’ll have to take the carbs completely off the bike and send them to someone qualified to clean them. Trust me, you do NOT want to take the carbs out of a CBX. Never. It’s a tremendous amount of work. Much better to spend ten minutes to drain the bowls then do the choke start to clear them out. I’ve done this every year when I shut the bike down for winter and it’s always started right up in the spring.
