[Honda_Sabre]

Hey everyone,
I am hoping someone can give me some advice. I have a 2004 Honda shadow Sabre. It sat for about a year and now I am having problems getting it running.

Whats wrong:
My bike will turn over and start but only if it is fully choked. If you try and back the choke off it immediately dies. If you give it some throttle it dies as well.

What I've already done:
I drained all the gas in the tank and put fresh in. I also added some Seafoam treatment to clean out any gunk.(didnt help)
I then took off the carburetor, disassembled it and cleaned with carb cleaner. To my surprise the carb wasn't that dirty. The jets needed a little cleaning but nothing was fully plugged. The floats looked fine and needles looked clear and would slide.
Replaced all of the spark plugs and added fresh oil(I had a leak but that was fixed)
I cleaned the air filter as well.


Can anyone tell me where I should look next? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[SemiFast]

"My bike will turn over and start but only if it is fully choked. If you try and back the choke off it immediately dies. If you give it some throttle it dies as well."


Classic example of plugged carburetor passages.

Even though you cleaned the jets you still have plugged ports (passages) inside the carb body itself.

You need to strip the carburetors completely and soak them in some type of carb cleaner.

After soaking spray aerosol carb/choke cleaner thru every port as a way to verify all are clear.


** You can try spraying carb cleaner thru the ports (paying special attention to the slow speed circuit) without soaking them but that rarely cleans them well enough to give reliable service. **

 

[cmonSTART]

Ya, it does sound like carbs - not uncommon to have to clean carbs more than once.

 

[Dodsfall]

The idle jet is likely plugged with varnish. Usually the smallest passage in the carb is the one that goes through the center of this jet and is the first to clog.

Running the proper size cleaning wire through the jet is the best way to make sure it is open. These can be bought as kits, although I have used guitar string to clear particularly stubborn deposits. Be careful, since the jets are made of a fairly soft material and can be damaged by overzealous poking.

For future reference, using a fuel stabilizer during storage will often save a lot of problems with this happening.