Engine bogging down

[Blueraven]

OK, here is the latest. Now it is happening a little more. Even worse after riding 60Km, then stopping for 3 hrs and then it has a hard time idling. I am at my ends wits. It isn't gas because I fill up at different places. Don't know how to solve this.

[ringadingh]

Rhys; have you tried cleaning the throttle body with carb cleaner yet. If you havn't that could well be your problem. You need to get in there with an old toothbrush and give it a good scrubbing.
Chech the Tech Boards for a how to on the cleaning procedure.

[leadbelly]

Have you thought of taking it to a shop? Maybe have the injectors tested. Fuel pressure? maybe the fuel pump is acting up. I don't know much about this stuff but I think there has to be a certain amount of pressure for the injector to produce a good atomized spray pattern.
I'm sure someone can varify that one way or the other.

[Blueraven]

I have not cleaned the throttle body yet. I will do that next. I may have to take it to the shop. I really don't want to as I don't have a shop that I trust yet. The bike was serviced at Kahuna but I was not impressed when I found out what was done to the bike to find some problems.

[ringadingh]

If you havn't done that cleaning yet, Id put money on it that is your problem. I use something like Kleen Flo Carb cleaner and it makes a huge difference. Be thorough, It only takes a few minutes to do it and the bike should idle after that. In fact you will most likely have to turn the idle down as it will be too fast.

[Blueraven]

Ok, the latest. I used some throttle body cleaner, with a toothbrush, and cleaned both ports into the butterfly valve. You should have seen the crud that came off. The walls were decent but the butterfly valves were encrusted with some oil, guessing from the vent at the bottom of the right side dog bowl. Now, there is some oil in the dog bowl, looks like some spray from the little hole at the bottom. Is that something to worry about? Should I see oil there?

Now after the cleaning, I ran the bike. Took some time to get started because of the throttle cleaner. Did spray some in while it was running, bogging it down a bit but did run.

What a difference in idling!!!! I think (really flippin hoping) that this solves my problem. It idled great!!!!. Even revving it up, sounded great. Thanks for the help Steve. I owe you a beer or so!

[ringadingh]

You may see some oil traces in the RH dogbowl, thats from the crankcase oil vent line. Don't worry about it.
It sounds like you got it all fixed up now, And youll also notice that your fuel mileage will be greatly improved as well.
The dirt builds up around the butterflies and starts choking the motor. It seems that the Vulcans are sensitive to a dirty throttle body.
When I first cleaned mine it idled at about 2000rpm after I was done. Thats because the previous owner didn't know why his bike wouldn't idle properly and just kept turning it up to get it to idle.

[Blueraven]

Well, I am hoping that this will fix the BOGGING down when running too.

[Blueraven]

The latest. Took it out for a ride tonight. Nice an warm out. Not even 10Km into ride it hiccup a couple of times the very brief. I though, great, that is the end of it. Then, at a stop light, turned left, then it was like it was running on 1 cylinder. I could accelerate but very labored at this was at under 50km/hr. Could smell a bit of gas, but then off we go. Nothing. The acceleration was back and it was like it never happened. This is getting frigging frustrating.

[cnc]

I still think you may have some water in your tank. Did you store it full of gas, heated or unheated storage?
When you removed the tank did you drain it completely?
If not dump a bottle of Isopropyl gas line antifreeze in to absorb the moisture.

[Blueraven]

I stored it with a full tank, have put seafoam in it. Put fuel stabilizer in it over the winter in a unheated shed.

[ringadingh]

Have you checked to see if the wires are chafed through on the LH side of the bike at the top corner of the rear cylinder. It a known problem on some bikes. Or you may have a loose ignition coil wire were they clip on the terminal under the tank.

[cnc]

Originally Posted by Blueraven

I stored it with a full tank, have put seafoam in it. Put fuel stabilizer in it over the winter in a unheated shed.

OK, but did you drain the tank when you removed it? I think I read that you had removed it looking for loose connections etc. If you have water in the gas sometimes it takes a few tank fulls and more than one dose of Isopropyl to get rid of it.
Also if you use gas with ethanol in it, it tends to attract moisture.

[Blueraven]

I did drain the tank. Completely empty? No, but there was so very little in there that it may as well have been empty. I guess the next thing would be to take off the tank, get in side and clean it. Some one has suggested that it may be a COIL. Thoughts?

[cnc]

Well I guess it is not the fuel it's self then. It could be several things.
FI light doesn't come on when this happens? If you could stop the bike and pull the plugs when this is happening you might get an indication if it is spark or fuel related, or leave a spare key in the filler cap ready to open the cap to check for a venting problem. This may sound dumb, but is the choke knob partly out? I'm just throwing a few simple ideas off the top of my head. If you haven't already, down load the service manual for more in depth look at fault finding.