So it's only happened twice since May and I haven't figured out how to replicate the problem yet. While riding down the road (once on side road and once on the higway) the engine just stalled with little to no symptoms beforehand. I pull over it doesn't start back up first try but usually after a min it will start and run fine. This second time on the highway it happened a couple times and then once off the highway it didn't happen again. But I did the same exact trip 2 days before with no problems. So I'm having a hard time figuring it out because the situation seems different every time it happens.
Well it sounds like a fuel starvation problem. If you can rule out everything electrical like Killswitch and so forth then must be a fuel/air issue there, perhaps something as simple as gas tank vent being clogged. Or it could be a fuel filter that's clogged or possibly some gunk in your carburetor clogging the Jets I don't know but a little more information about for example how long has the bike been sitting, did you winterize it, have you run some fuel system cleaner through it, changed the air cleaner stuff like that. You're going to have to be sort of a detective eliminating things like that one by one and let us know what you learn along the way.
I was pretty convinced it was some kind of fuel issue but now that you mention the kill switch I remember it acting finicky like a loose connection or just going bad. I'll try checking there first. Thanks
Usually I do pretty good detective work, lol. If I can replicate the problem. Right now im at that annoying stage of its happend but not quite enough to narrow it down.
Also for the other info:
The previous owner traded it in in May and I bought it within a week of it arriving at my husbands work so I'm not sure about his winter storage but judging by his meticulous service records he turned in with the bike I imagine he probably stored it properly. I'll work down the fuel system list after I get the kill switch checked and/or replaced and I'll update this post as I go. Thanks again.
Fuel tank vent/hoses. With a gravity feed system, if the tank doesn't vent to the atmosphere, the fuel will eventually pull a vacuum in the tank and that will cause the engine to stop running. I had this exact thing happen to me when I first got my W-650. Fuel tank vent hose was kinked under the tank. Found that and it hasn't happened again since 2009
Makes sense. I'll check the hose as well and keep my progress updated. ☺
Also add 2 "glug"s of seafoam and go for a ride and see what happens, if there is any dirt or such in the system this should clean it up.
Awesome, will try. Thanks. :)
When we got our first Drifter, the PO made a point of telling us not to 'overfill' the tank at the gas pump (blocking the filler neck vent). He said it would stall without notice after about 3 miles if we did. Hope the answer to your stalling issue is this easy!
--The Bride
Actually now that you say that I think I remember reading the same in the manual. I don't fill it into the neck but I fill it close. So possibly except for I made it much more than a few miles both times. 80ish miles the first time and 60ish miles the second time. It's just about due for valve check so I'm gonna send it in and have them tasks a peek at it as well as pick up some seafoam and see where I'm at.
Thanks a bunch, I knew I could count on this forum for plenty of info. ❤
valve check should not take you long to do that and then get the other issue sorted out......
Good to see Seafoam. We finally got it in Canada.
I was glad to see 2 stores in town carry it here.
Update : tomorrow I'm gonna take a whack at doing my valve check, also grabbed new plugs and a new K&N filter. At the same time I'll check my petcock and get to see what the current air filter looks like. Once it's done I'm gonna add the seafoam to the gas tank and see if that helps. I'll add seafoam to the oil when I'm due for an oil change. I'll see where that gets me and reupdate.
Ok valve check is fairly simple, the hardest part is removing the cover on the rear cylinder, just have to be patient and slowly ease it and wiggle it out. Hardest part is if the spark plug tube stays with the valve cover it should remain down. At the time doing the valve check would like you figure a great time to check out the tank and all the hoses and lines to be sure they are kink free and not pinched anyplace. You can also check all your grounds under the tank and wiring. Have fun and enjoy tinkering.....
what's the best way to greet the tube to stay down without damaging anything. I think that's what I'm stuck on now.
Nevermind got it YAY!!! Thank you soooooo much!
Any suggestions on this rear cover? I've tried every direction and can not clear the chain.
Ended up getting my valve clearance check and adjustment done. The petcock seemed ok but the bike now won't stay running with the petcock in the on position but will in reserve. Couple of odd things after the valve adjustment. My idle was a little bit higher, of course it could just be I hit it while doing every thing else. The second did thing is the valve clearances were quite a bit out and after adjusting them the motor now sounds kind of tinney to me now. I explained it to my husband as it used to sound like little galloping ponies and now sounds like sprinting tap dancers, lol :P
So probably the stalling problem was the petcock to begin with? Might want to look at getting a petcock rebuild kit
That's what I'm thinking/hoping. I tend to have crappy luck though lol.
ARE YOU SURE YOU GOT ALL YOUR VACUUM LINES CONNECTED? DID YOU INCREASE THE VALVE CLEARANCE? IT SHOULD NOT TICK AFTER YOU ARE DONE, UNLESS YOU LISTEN REALLY CAREFULLY. Sounds like you went to the high side of tolerance with your adjustment.
I was careful to make sure any disconnected hoses were put back all the way on, but I will try to double check them next time we catch a break from this rain. Every shim need to be at least 2-3 shim sizes thinner. I triple and quadruple checked the clearance after changing the shims because I was concerned about the measurements i was getting from the original shims if I could even get a measurement. Some I couldn't even get my smallest 0.005 feeler gauge in there.
I also checked that every shim put the clearance near center of the tolerance. I would run through the thinnest to the thickest feelers for the tolerance range and make sure that the thinnest would move pretty easily with barely any drag working through to the thickest I wouldn't be able to get in or it would be really hard.
Still sounds like they are set a little on the loose side. The noise you hear is NOT what most people think. It's not the rocker arm slapping the top of the valve stem, but rather the valve slapping the valve seat as it returns that last couple of thousandths. Possible that the change in valve clearance caused the idle speed to increase, but what concerns me more is having to run the fuel valve in a different position, unless you drained and didn't refill the tank....
That's what I was thinking. After looking through online a lot of people say the tinny sound is usually from too loose valves. Didnt drain the tank, there was about 1/3 of a tank but I think that might tie back to probably needing to replace the petcock. My biggest concern is if I get down to the lowest clearance allowed and it still does it. My only options from there are leave it or go outside of spec back to where it was. It sounded and ran perfectly with the much thicker shims in it before with the exception of the petcock that I need to replace.
did you write down which valves had which clearance and which shims? Notes can be a real life saver. As much as it sounds like a lot of work, I would go over your adjustments again. I think you set them all too loose. Exhaust vales generally run a bit looser clearance because they run hot. Loose valves not only sound bad, but the invite valve head tuliping. It's your first time doing it, so when you get more experience, you will be better at it. There should be a noticeable drag drag on the feeler gauge when you are correct. If it slides in and out easily, you are too loose. It takes practice. Why are you blaming the fuel valve?
I kept the original shims but did not write the shim and clearances down. I will next time. I did set them to have resistance on the feeler but I don't think I would call it drag so maybe I did read them looser then they actually were. I was just concerned that say for example on intake if i had noticeable drag at 0.10 and by 0.12 or 0.13 couldn't fit the feeler in there at all, that would be considered too tight?
With the fuel valve, I had thought I had a bad petcock because my original problems with stalling as well as when I started it up after doing the valve check were all when the petcock was in the on position. All 3 situations seemed to improve when I would switch to reserve and all 3 times there were no less then 1/3 of a tank usually closer to a half tank full.
HOLD THE PRESS I FIGURED MY VALVE ISSUE OUT!. I decided to slowly read through the instructions I have to make sure I didn't miss anything yesterday and realised I measured in freaking inches not mm! What a dummy :o so hopefully Saturday I'll be fixing that. Then I'll finally get to run the seafoam and see where I'm at.
Well, that will sure make a difference! I still thing you have a venting problem. Gravity feed systems are susceptible to that...
My poor baby! Lol I immediately knew it didn't sound right
Otherwise then making sure hoses are tight and not kinked what else could or should I check for a venting problem?
Well you took a detour with the valve clearance setting. Once you get that back where it should be return to the stalling out problem which if it's not gas tank venting then it might be your petcock because it's suspicious if it only wants to run on reserve and you have a half a tank. Just my 1.5 cents.
Ok thanks. That was the plan, redo valve clearance and then revisit the stalling issue. Every cent appreciated :)
So redid my valves and yup they went right back to where they were! ??? Sure wish someone would do a video on getting the rear cover out without scratching it :( oh well I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. Also cleaned and oiled my filter.
Tonight I'm going to fill her up and add the seafoam then going for a descent ride tomorrow and we'll see if the seafoam did the trick.
Again I really appreciate everyone's help and patience through my lurking curve dopey moments ;D
Well you should do that video, cuz now you're an expert and I've never even cracked my covers haha. As far as your stalling out problem keep us posted. Regarding the petcock there is a thread about that because it is a vacuum petcock and so it's got some funny quirks but there's a discussion on the Forum about how to work on it should you need to.
Bahahaha my poor rear cover definitely disagrees with you. I will keep updated as well as take a peek at those threads. Even if not the problem I like reading through them to get a good understanding for things to watch for as well as figuring out what are quirks and what are actual problems.
Rear cover removal, never scratched the cover yet. So if you are standing behind your bike, or in the seat area, on the left side of the machine, seat is off, tank is off, there are a few items need to be loosened off, and I have posted this info here on the forum.
http://www.vulcandrifterriders.com/forum/index.php?action=articles;cat=17
top 2 articles.
You always remove the cover to the ride side of the bike and it is a matter of very gently sliding it out and taking your time. Picture of both my valve covers and no marks on them......
mm vs in........lol.....really glad you figured that one out.......so have a fun ride and let us know how things go and we can move on to the next issue.....
Awesome thanks! I've been slowly working on reading everything in the forum I think I've actually seen your post but skimmed too quick to see all the tips. So far so good with the seafoam I'll just have to keep riding to see if it acts up again.
Remember you ride a metric bike now and everything is in metric stuff.....lol...
Lol and it's the first one I've been brave enough to try to work on.
Just updating. I haven't had a chance to run the bike under a half a tank yet but so far no problems running on the first 50 miles. Hopefully I can get out soon to check beyond 50 miles but so far so good.
I live in an area that has a couple of long steep hills. I've found that going downhill on one of these is usually where I have to go onto reserve. I suspect that this is due to the shape of the tank.
Did you stall when riding downhill by any chance? Did you switch over to reserve before you restarted?
Both times I was on level road but switching to reserve did help both times.
Seems like seafoam helped. I made it past 60 miles again. Unfortunately it looks like right around 100 miles I have to put it on reserve. Not sure how I feel about 35ish miles/ gal my 250 spoils me with 50-55 mpg lol. On a good note I finally pulled off switching to reserve while riding, yay! Also the switch to reserve was fairly accurate seeing as I pumped 3 gal back into the tank right after switching to reserve.
if you haven't done it already, make the sprocket change from 17/40 to 18/38. I gained 7 mpg on my overall riding (some highway and some city) I regularly get 46-49 mpg now vs. max of 39 with the old setup...re-jetting the carb helped a lot, too.
Yes i have seen that a lot on here. It's definitely on my to do list but I have a few other things to do first. I'm sure there will be a handful of things to slowly work on doing like that as I go along.
Quote from: Aimee.L on July 29, 2017, 21:54:23 PM
Seems like seafoam helped. I made it past 60 miles again. Unfortunately it looks like right around 100 miles I have to put it on reserve. Not sure how I feel about 35ish miles/ gal my 250 spoils me with 50-55 mpg lol. On a good note I finally pulled off switching to reserve while riding, yay! Also the switch to reserve was fairly accurate seeing as I pumped 3 gal back into the tank right after switching to reserve.
Well if it's any consolation I'm only getting about 37 miles per gallon on mine. That's a combination of city and secondary roads--rarely on the freeway with it. I haven't done the sprocket change on mine but I don't intend to because I like the stock gearing which I feel is already a bit tall for the kind of riding I do.
Sounds like it's running VERY rich. What color is the end of the pipe? Black and sooty, or grey? Somebody may have put a jet kit in and set it up rich before you bought it.