this is a post from a local forum. everyone on that forum is a dumb $hit or if they know, they don't help. might as well ask you guy's:dunno

last time he posted, he said it starts up w/ the choke on, then dies when choke is off. i told him to raise the idle by twisting the black nob in the left side farring. i guess he tore apart the carbs and @#cked it all up. poor guy...


"Last time i posted i said i had a head gasket problem but now im not so sure. Well lets start off from the beginning. i have a 1995 ninja 250. I just bought it a couple months ago. The last owner said it sat for 2-3 years.

Now to the problems i have. Today i tried to fix some of the problems. Last time i cleaned out the carbs and changed oil and oil filter. But my bike still didnt idle right. It would just die when i took off the choke. Now today i decided to change both spark plugs. Then i decided to try and start it up. It still had the same problem as before. But now ii noticed that my left side carb is overflowing. Lots of gas is coming out of the intake. Could this be the float is stuck open?

Also i tried messing with the black knob on the carb(idle??) but it still didnt run good. But i got it to run without the choke when i adjusted the knob. But then it would rev to 4k then back down to 1k and it would start knocking.

So then we decided to drain some of the gas out of the tank. (there is a lot of rust in the tank, anyone know how to clean it out??) so a lot of rust came out. Could this be causing my engine problems?? Bad gas and rust, since its been sitting for 2-3 yrs??

So then i just decided to put the tank back on and try to ride it. (My battery is dead so i have been using a battery jumper) So i started it up with the battery jumper on. Then as soon as i took the jumper off the rpm guages went crazy(showing 8k) also the lights dimmed. So i came to a conclusion something is wrong with the generator because even with a dead battery the generator should keep the bike a live. Anyone got a better solution???

So then i figured out that if i kep twisting/untwist the throttle i could keep it a live (kind of) so i jumped on the bike put it into gear let the clutch go and off we went. But something was wrong, i was at full throttle and only goin like 5 mph. I could walk faster than that. the bike wasnt even going anywhere. twisting the throttle did nothing.

Also could this be a sign of tight valve??? the previous owner never adjusted the valve. the bike has 13000k miles.

Please someone help me. im getting mad."

Start with cleaning the tank, replacing fuel filter, cleaning/rebuilding fuel petcock. Check/adjust float level, check needle and seats for wear(should be a nice "V" angle on needle). Make sure carbs are seated good into intake boots and there are no leaks.

Clean/replace air filter

Adjust valves(pretty easy task on this bike).

Sounds like the bike is starving for fuel. All the above are problems a bike gets from sitting around not being run for a length of time.

Only running with the choke on is a sign of tight valves, but it sounds like there are a few more issues. make sure the rubber boots that hold the carbs to the motor are not leaking air, and make sure the idle circuit in each carb is compleatly clean, take a wire and go through all passageways, i use a guitar string. With 13000 miles, valves should still be within spec, but you never know. And what you describe with full throttle and the bike not going anywhere sounds like really low generator voltage. If you have one of thoes auto jumper packs try strapping one of thoes to the back of the bike and see if the bike accually moves and this will tell you if the generator is bad, or you can just connect a meter to the batery terminals with the bike running on its own and rev it to about 3500 and if the voltage is below 13.5 volts the charging system is on its way out.

clogged carbs.....old fuel..............needs to be drained and cleaned thoroughly.....carbs and petcock............just did this on a honda 90 atc.....exact symptoms