Mr.Ice

Hi all, I would like to introduce myself. For the purpose of having a unique screen name I chose Mr.Ice. Believe me I do not think I am cool, it is just a play on my real name, which by the way is always taken. Any how I am looking for some help. I have a 99 Bandit 1200 and have owned it since new. It has 8000 miles on it and has been taken care of and is like new. It is all stock except for a Yoshimura slip on. I started the bike for the season a couple weeks ago and it ran great. I rode it for about 5 miles and it ran well through its entire range. Unfortunately I had family obligations and had to park it. The next time I took it out was about a week later and seemed to run well enough but when I tried to get the engine over 2500-3000 RPM it completely shut down until I completely let off the throttle and babied it back to life. I found the choke slightly on and turned it completely off and thought that was it. Not so, it continued for the 4 mile ride back to my house. I took the Bike to a local shop (Yamaha, I know but it was close enough for me to ride it there) and without even looking at it they wanted to tear the carbs off and clean them for $570. I decided I would do them since I did them once before and it was tooooo much to spend. I was not convinced it was to problem either. The bike was parked for the winter but I did use stabilizer in the fuel and it was just running great. I decided to pull the plugs. They were all covered with carbon.I put in new plugs. Now it runs a little better.I can get to around 3500-4000 RPM but then the same happens. Pulled the plugs again and all covered with carbon. Oh yeah it has black smoke when it is stalling out. Seems like a rich condition to me rather than blocked carbs. Can blocked carbs cause the carbon on the plugs? I am thinking it is ignition related, like maybe weak spark. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated. I would like to avoid pulling the carbs if I don't need to.

Mr.Ice

seruzawa

Hmmmmm. All the cylinders a running rich. I'd suspect a problem with the starting circuit. Those carbs don't use traditional chokes, they have a mixture enrichening circuit that the 'choke' cable activates. Make sure that the 'choke' arm that the cable connects too is closing completely. Even a tiny opening will cause the problem you are having.

You can check the spark by removing a plug wire and putting a spare plug on it. Hold it to the base of the plug to the cylinderhead and crank the engine. You should see a bluish spark.

Have you searched for a Bandit owners forum?

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Kenneth_Moore

Mr. Ice, you need two cans of the miracle carb cleaner:

Bardahl's Choke 'n Carb Cleaner!

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SmokeU

8K miles in 10 years, maybe the carbs are gummed due to lack of use?

longride

When you pulled the carbs apart and 'did them yourself' did you make sure everything was REALLY clean and make sure the float heights were correct and then did you sync the carbs? If you didn't do all those things then go take them apart again and clean them and check the float heights. Follow the manual on that. That can make it run rich if the floats are too high. You can make a cheap carb sync tool for about 5 bucks in parts and get that right. I would bet the carbs are your issue.

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Mr.Ice

Longride, sorry for being vague but I cleaned them myself about 5 years ago because of a much more minor performance issue. It would hesitate at low rpm. That problem was resolved from the cleaning. I guess i have a hard time understanding a rich condition from being starved of fuel. But i guess anything is possible.

The_AirHawk

There are air-bleeds in the emulsion tubes that, if plugged - will cause the bike to run rich. Also, if there is anything preventing the float-valves from closing completely, the resulting flooding will do the same. Not to mention air-cutoff circuit..........

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Mr.Ice

Airhawk, Thanks for the great info. It makes me feel better about pulling them off the bike. The cleaning is the easy part, the removing is the hard part.