Freeby venture trouble idling

[poorwhiteboy]

My father in law just GAVE me his old venture😄 I was pretty leery of taking it at first because it had been sitting for 7 years till now... After I got it home and cleaned up a bit(mostly the carbs) it pretty cool and really fun! But let me tell you what, those carbs are something else!! It had sat the whole time with fuel in it so it took some heavy cleaning to get it to run decent. It's not runnin perfect yet but it's loads better than it was. Hopefully some gum out will clean them up the rest of the way and prevent me from pulling the whole set of carbs out! Any tips on carburetor cleaning/removal will be appreciated.. Any ways, here she is.

[Drews]

Nice ride to the Forum

[Marcarl]

Sitting for 7 weeks or 7 years shouldn't really make any difference, unless somebody went and turned the key on to fill the bowls with gas on a periodic basis. Now, what happened before it sat might have more of an impact. So how many miles on it at this point, what year is it, does it start well, does it need choke to run, does it miss fire. Just a few questions.

I might suggest to clean and lube the carb linkages, check the diaphrams, make sure the air filter is clean and in place, replace the plugs with the right ones, put on some new rubbers for starters.

Looks like a nice scoot to move around on, I'm maybe a bit jealous.

[bongobobny]

Sure looks pretty!!

 

Well, there is a LOT to the carbs as they are very complex with several "circuits" for different conditions that can plug up. There are rubber diaphragms that operate the sliders that can develop pinholes and screw things up. The carbs each need to be balanced to each other which requires 4 balanced vacuum gauges or manometers. There is a procedure called "shotgunning" for cleaning the innards of the carbs which if you do a search you should eventually find the procedure, but for now, buy the product called Seafoam and put one can in a full tank of gas and drive it like you stole it! Be prepared to change plugs afterword as they will probably foul out a little from all the crud that will break loose, and the fact that our bikes eat plugs and should be changed every 5K to 10K anyway.

 

Make sure you are running on all 4 cylinders as these bikes run surprisingly well and smooth on only 3...

 

Good luck and welcome!!!

[poorwhiteboy]

Sitting for 7 weeks or 7 years shouldn't really make any difference, unless somebody went and turned the key on to fill the bowls with gas on a periodic basis. Now, what happened before it sat might have more of an impact. So how many miles on it at this point, what year is it, does it start well, does it need choke to run, does it miss fire. Just a few questions.

I might suggest to clean and lube the carb linkages, check the diaphrams, make sure the air filter is clean and in place, replace the plugs with the right ones, put on some new rubbers for starters.

Looks like a nice scoot to move around on, I'm maybe a bit jealous.

 

It has 53k miles on it which doesn’t seem too high for the fact that it’s an 84... after puttin a new battery in it, it starts up with the choke just fine, but it won’t idle without the choke on. Once I get out riding it I can take the choke off and it’ll run but it don’t run strong, it still need just a little bit of choke. I’m going to go get some sea foam today and run it through and see how that helps. When I first got it the slides were stuck in the carb so I had to carefully free those up and clean them and I inspected the diaphragms which were all good. But yes it does need the choke to run. Not very much at all but just a little.

[Marcarl]

From what you tell me, I would take the carbs off and totally go over them, and through them. For that you need a carb kit with gaskets, o-rings and rubber plugs. Seafoam might fix them, bit seafoam will only clean the ports that are still operational or partially operational. Now I like doing carbs, but I not a fan of taking them off, so if you try SF first I can understand.

[CaseyJ955]

From what you tell me, I would take the carbs off and totally go over them, and through them. For that you need a carb kit with gaskets, o-rings and rubber plugs. Seafoam might fix them, bit seafoam will only clean the ports that are still operational or partially operational. Now I like doing carbs, but I not a fan of taking them off, so if you try SF first I can understand.

 

This sounds like very sound guidance, If I may toss in my .02, avoid ethanol tainted fuel, any carburetor equipped vehicle really. I store mine all winter with full bellies of pure gasoline and a splash of sea foam and in the spring they bark right to life. I let my Vmax sit for two weeks with ethanol fuel and it gummed up enough that a shotgun cleaning was not sufficient and I had to pull and clean carbs. Another thing I might suggest is visiting the Factory Pro website and hit the Vmax page for float adjustment as then tend to be a tad rich from the factory and these V4s prefer a tad lean. Vmax and Venture share the same carb config and float level adjustment. If you end up needing carb parts, K&L (iirc) is a fairly priced Japanese aftermarket mfr. NEVER try to save money by using Chinese kits or parts, its not worth the headache and you'll end up going back in with quality parts. Also of course the Yamaha OEM parts are excellent but not cheap. Check diaphragms for rips or pinholes, make sure all the slides are free without binding up. This assumes that your plugs are good and the carbs are synched up. The downpipe spit sizzle test is a quick way to make sure its hitting on all 4 cyl, its eerie how well these V4s run on only 3 pots.

 

Welcome, she's a mighty purdy machine, I have no doubt you will love her once the kinks are sorted.

[Patch]

There seems to me to be one uncertainty in the OP.

Do you like this bike enough to turn it into a project?

If so you need a budget to work with or from.

 

I am working on a post for just such a turn as is this or say your situation. Problem is, engine fixes come easy to me, alphabet not so much..lol

 

Patch