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New Here...GS550E problems...

3K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  Bagged_camaro 
#1 ·
Hey all!
Me and my girlfriend just bought ourselves our first bike to learn on. Its a 78' Suzuki GS550E...dont laugh...it was only $300 candian and we figured it would be a good learners bike. Body is in awesome shape.

Ok, heres the prob:
Bike sat for 2 years, ran perfectly before. Now, i drained the tank and put in new gas, plugs and oil. So, while cranking the bike, it will start after a little reluctance... but gas is pouring out from the bottom of the bike.

I checked all the fuel lines and they are near new. The gas is coming from one of the (i dont know what they are, im assuming theyre vent tubes) coming off one of the 4 carbs. (Each carb has a fuel line, and then a line that is rounted out of the bottom of the carb to the undercarriage of the bike.

Out of the four "vent tubes" at the bottom of the bike, the fuel is only coming out one of the four. I followed the line up, an its coming from carb #3 (if counting the carbs from the left side of the bike)

I dont know what to think, possibly that the old gas has clogged on of the needles and seats in that carb and now the gas is overflowing and draining out the vent tube. I sprayed carb cleaner in the intake while it was running but no difference.

Any help please!
Please dont ignore this due to it being an older bike :(

G
 
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#3 ·
Well, i sprayed the intake with nearly a can of carb cleaner to no avail...
so it looks like im pullin that carb apart now... got the fuel tank and seat stripped, shes now ready to roll...

ive got a manual that shows the exploded view of the carbs, but no explanation on how to dismantle.

Question: Because the fuel is only leaking out of carb #3's vent tube, does that mean its only this carb that is fouled? or do all the carbs connect and let feul flow throughout them all?

G
 
#4 ·
sounds like a sitcky float bowl, you should be able to take the bottom of carb 3 off and clean it out and so forth. It would be wise to take all the carbs off, (easier taking off then putting back on) and clean them yourself or get someone that knows what they are doing to do it.
 
#5 ·
well,
thanks to my two service manuals i have, removing the quad carb assembly was extremely easy! :D

Ive got it now on my work bench and the bowl of #3 removed. Was about a 1/8th inch of varnish covering everything. The floats were also a tad sticky. Will clean all 4 of them up after work tonight...then reinstall. Im gonna do the needle and seats to while in in there.

Will let ch'all know how it goes from here on!

Thanks for the help.

G
 
#6 ·
It worked!!

got it all cleaned up, did all four carbs instead of the one, they 2 of them were pretty fouled.

So i threw it all together, and it will now prime and crank over will no fuel leaks...BUT...

the bike will crank over and start up beutifully ...run for about 3 seconds then immediatly die. Now the longer i let the bike sit...when its not running, ill get a few more seconds of life out of it, not much, but a bit.
I think this is a fuel problem, as in, the carbs will fill with gas while its not running, and that is enough to get it going , but the demand of the motor quickly runs it dry and the fuel cant keep up.

Now, i dont know what to figure. If it is fuel delivery, all there is is the fuel tank, then the valve (i know theres nothing wrong with those two)

then about 3"s of fuel line, the filter (which i didnt change, but i blew threw it and it seemed to be clear) then another 3"s of fuel lines then its al carbs from there.

Any help???

G
 
#7 ·
fuel problem

this is going to sound really stupid, but it happened to me once. the bike would run for 30 seconds to a minute and then die. turns out i had the petcock wrong. when i thought it was shut, it was open and gravity feeding the carbs, filling up the bowl, then when i went to start it, i turned the petcock off. burn the bowl, run out of fuel.
i just bought a 78 myself, at a rummage sale for 30.00 american. i walked it home, hooked up a battery and everything looks good but the motor won't start. i took it apart and everything looks clean, i mean showroom clean! even the gaskets. but the carbs....ugh! i've taken them off and am getting ready to tear them down and clean 'em up. any tips or things to watch out for?
 
#8 ·
Well,
i finally somewhat figure dout what it was!!!

Each time i rebuilt the carb ( i think i did it about 5 times) i used a gasket "goo" to replace the float bowl gasket. Mainly because the shop wanted $16 PER gasket. So after having all those problems, i figured out it was that air was getting sucked into the float bowl from that lack of gasket, which was causing it to lean out.

I made up some new proper gaskets, put it togehter, and now it actually wants to run. ( a bit rough, ill need to do some more tuning) but i think i pretty much got it! :lol:

Thanks!
 
#10 ·
sticky floats after storage

My 77 gs550 has had the same problems after storage,once you get it running,run some fuel injection cleaner through the tank to clean up the varnish. the cheap stuff works just fine...(only ride in the summer to work,store every rainy season)
 
#11 ·
thats the plan man...

Ive rebuilt this carb close to 10 times now. The inside and outside of this carb is spotless. Ive learned alot since me and my gf bought this bike. I didnt know anything about bikes (mechanically wise) now ive picked up alot.

But what i do know is that im gonna drain the float bowls and put in a good fuel stabalizer before i store it next winter!
 
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