Topic: Idling problems on my 550f rebuild

[catzor]

The bike stopped running a while back and was parked by the PO. I got it running, then running even better with a simple points adjustment and thorough carb cleaning.

When I first started it after these adjustments, I was thrilled at the responsiveness of the engine and it's willingness to rev smoothly(in neutral).  I started off down the road and it still didn't want to rev much under load, but I down shifted, go the revs up, then it was like I had broken down a wall. The bike took off! As long as I kept the revs up it blasted down the road.

When I pulled in the clutch and stopped, I noticed it was running poorly at low revs again. Then it died. I had great difficulty getting it started again, and could only do so by having the throttle wide open.. By the time I got back to my place, it wouldn't start at all.This sounds to me like the pilots have clogged themselves again. What else could make it run poorly at low revs, then take off at high revs, then get dramatically and progresively worse in the course of a mile or so?  I had no airbox on, but I'm not sure how relevant that is.

[KingCustomCycles.com]

Plugged pilots are likely.  You lost 1 cylinder and it was sluggish, then you lost another one and it got real bad.  The "turbo effect" was the bike struggling past the low and midrange lean condition and using the unplugged main jets.  Just wait until it runs well from idle to redline, fun fun. 

[dave500]

empty the fuel tank and get any crud out of it,also any fuel filters clean out or replace them,you dont want to be doing the same job over and again.

[catzor]

That was what was puzzling. I pulled the carbs once, cleaned all the jets and reinstalled. I ran the bike for about five minutes(I was just seeing if it would try to start at all). I then took them back off to detail clean and the pilots were all at least partially clogged again even though the bike only ran for a couple minutes! I suppose I will find the same this time. There must be some sediment somewhere that's buggering things up.

[Frostyboy]

empty the fuel tank and get any crud out of it,also any fuel filters clean out or replace them,you don't want to be doing the same job over and again.

+1
Have you removed the petcock to make sure the filter on the stand pipe is actually there?

[Raef]

Ive been through the same thing cleaning the carbs and tank several times, even adding in line filters. Nothing fixed it till I spent the 25 bucks ordering and replacing the filter in the tank

[Stev-o]

clean clean clean your fuel system!