Getting back on the horse....

[Parabola]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm new to these forums so go easy on me. hahaha.

 

Anyways, I have a '00 Banshee. Pretty much stock, minus a few things here and there but nothing crazy (FMF Pipes, K&N air filters, 1 size down small sprocket, etc, and a whole bunch of other things that don't really need to be mentioned for this topic). I haven't been riding in close to 3 years (some friends have moved away, etc etc) and my bike has been sitting with fluids this whole time...BUT....we are going out in a week and a half.

 

I'm not a very mechanical guy (oh how I wish I would have taken an auto class in high school) but I know how to do the basics to keep my bike running good. The question I have is this....

 

I'm not going to start up the bike until I do all of the maintanence work on it. But besides draining the gas & gear oil, cleaing the air filter, changing the plugs, tire pressure, greasing the joints, lube the chain......what else should I do? My friends mentioned and will help me take out the gas tank and clean that out, along with the carbs. Does that pretty much cover it? I changed out my coolent before my last trip 3 years ago.

 

Oh...and if I have pre-mix oil that's been sitting for 7 years sealed up....is it still good to use? Or should I just buy new stuff? I have been using YamaLube and still have a case of the stuff.

 

Thanks for any help you all can offer.

 

-Eager to get back to the sand!!!!

[5150banshee]

yep that should pretty much do it.as far as the oil im not sure but i think they have a stamped date but i could be wrong,plus after 7 years i would just buy new.i would change the coolint also 3yrs is a long time.

[felcon edition banshee]

get new oil coz u prob have like 50octine fuel there (banshees run mostly on 92octine) (and also randomly guessing on the octine so dont shout on me if im wrong) and the coolint aint that expencive just drain it all and fill it up again in the fill cap under the radiator cover. other then that Welcom to Banshee HQ u will find ppl r nice (atless most of the times :happy: ) if u need any help pm me or some1 else i mean ure asking a 12yr old lol. If i can give u a piece of advise though is NEVER EVER rais up a old post use the serch button (ppl will scream on u like hell if u dont serch lol)

[gipperz]

Do ALL fluid changes including fresh gas. You should be able to handle that. You might want to invest in a manual it might just help you. Don't be afraid to tackle this on your own, besides you can always get on here and ask. Where abouts you located? Maybe there is a meber on here that lives close enough to help you. Just an idea. gipperz

[JET 99]

maybe a little pre mix down the sparkplug holes and let it set for acouple minutes then gently turn motor over a few times with plugs out just to make sure rings dont freeze or stick.... :beer:

[Parabola]

Thanks for all of the replies guys. I ended up taking my bike to my friends house just so I could watch him do it and I could learn. I'm definately a visual learner. Anyways, after draining the gas, and cleaning out the tank which was really clean, we decided to change the plugs and start it up. Started right up. What bummed me out was how boggy it is. I let it warm up and gased it some more and still boggy. No matter how much I was on the gas it was boggy.

 

So we shut down the bike and my friend pulled out the carbs and took them apart. They are currently sitting in gas to be cleaned up. There wasn't much in there. They looked pretty clean, but maybe there was enough residue in there to create a problem. No clue, I guess we will find out today.

 

I took my bike to Trinity Racing after I put my pipes on it and had it dyno'd. It's ran awesome since then. If after cleaning up the carbs, it still runs like shit, then I'll probably take it back there and maybe have them rejet it and dyno it again.....but I wouldn't think it would need that because nothing has changed on the bike....it's just been sitting.

 

Thoughts??

[letsgetthisdone]

DON"T TAKE IT TO TRINTIY!!!! trinity sux balls, i can't beleive they didn't try to sell you have of thier business the last time you were there. As for it bein boggy, do a leak down test, compression test, and make sure it is gettin stong spark....even if it comes back to life after the carb get cleaned up, i'd still do a leak down test and a compression test.

[Parabola]

Ahh well I took my bike to Trinity like 6 years ago. Before they moved to where they are now. I never had a problem with them before, but I only had it's dyno'd there. They didn't do anything else.

 

I'll have to look up how to do the tests you are talking about....again, I'm a newbie when it comes to actually working on my bike. =(

 

Did you have a bad experience at Trinity?? Now you have me curious.

 

Thx

[letsgetthisdone]

Yes and no, I've called them a few times to get help with my single carb kit i bought from them, lets just say they were very unhelpful. They tryed to tell me i should be running a dual carb setup with the porting i have

(when they didn't even do my porting), when that wasn't even my question. And then they didn't want to tell me the float height for the carburetor cuz "it wasn't goin to run rght anyways". Oh yaeh, and apparently my T5's are holding back my motor compared to thier stage4 pipes, according to trinity, and again, they didn't even do my motor work. That is why i don't llike trinity.

 

Back to your bike....

 

The symptoms you are describing sounds like a TORS problem, maybe. Underneath the gas tank towards the front of the bike and on the left is a little black box (its directly across from the coil), unplug it from the wring harness and see what happens. If youre motor comes back to life that was the problem.

 

If thats not it, do a search for leak down test and look for RNBRAD's write-up on it, It shows you what to buy and how to set it up and do the test.

 

For the compression test , you are going to have to go out and buy a snap-on or matco tester kit, it'll come with a gauge and a few adapters to thread into the sparkplug hole. When you do the test, have both sparkplugs out (compression tester needs to be in one of the cylinders), hold the throttle wide open and kick the shit out of it until the guage stops movin. If your topend is in good shape and you have a stock cylinder head that isn't milled your compression should be 120-130psi if you are at or close to sea level

 

Go out and buy a clymer manual and you'll be able to work on your bike yourself. You'll find that its really not all that hard.