Diagnose this

[Oakie]

Mrs Oakie's EL250 has some strange habits:

Sometimes hard to start and will sometimes run on only one cylinder for a wee while at start up before bursting into double cylindered life. When it has run on one cylinder we are rewarded with a pretty impressive display of white smoke from the exhaust. It usually only does it's single cylinder bike impression for about 20 seconds but yesterday it ran on one cylinder for about 3 minutes before normal service was resumed.

Once it is running, it runs really well except that when hot, it won't idle for long. It'll idle away for various periods of time (from 5 to 30 seconds) and then over a period of about 7 to 10 seconds the revs drop and it dies.

Maybe relevant, may not be but there's a surprising amount of gunk that comes out of the wee drain hole thing under the exhaust at start up. Quite a watery/oily looking mixture but I think the oily looking stuff may just be carbon as it washes off under a tap where I'd imagine that oil would tend to stick.

I have a few ideas but I'm not worthy to be a even mechanic's asshole so do you folk have any ideas?

[TonyB]

Are they water cooled? If so I'd say blown head gasket

[Oakie]

Yep. Water cooled and the head gasket thing was one of the things that had crossed my mind. Would a compression test confirm or discount that?
(Still under the dealer warranty incidentally so I'm not overly stressed)

[Trudes]

I don't know, but I know it's your birthday, so Happy Birthday!!!

[Oakie]

I don't know, but I know it's your birthday, so Happy Birthday!!!

Hey thanks. Yep, 47 years old and I still get mistaken for my daughters' boyfriend or brother so it's all good!

[Squiggles]

use ya warranty while you've got it, something cant be right, hanne's zzr has the same motor but we havent experienced anything like that before...

[kinger]

If you think your head gaskets blown, also have a look at the state of the oil in the sump. If it's gone creamy, it means there's water in there, and that's only come from one place.
Take it for warranty work anyway. Let them figure and fix it.

[Oakie]

No. The oil looks fine and there are no air bubbles coming up thru the radiator while running. Coolant level doesn't appear to have dropped either.

Left carby does seem to be oozing petrol though.

[James Deuce]

Carb O-Ring has perished I reckon. My TRX did all that and it turned out to be carb O-Rings.

[Disco Dan]

open your oil cap and take a good wiff. Can you smell petrol? or just oil?

Check the sump for water.

Does your fuel tank cap seat correctly? possibility of any water in your fuel system?

all may contribute?

What are your plugs like?

Last service?

Process of ellimination.....

[Oakie]

Carb O-Ring has perished I reckon. My TRX did all that and it turned out to be carb O-Rings.

.
Quite on the cards. It's an import that probably hasn't been used for 7 or 8 years so I wouldn't be surprised if there's some perishing going on here and there. Thanks. I'll get the dealer to check that out.

[Oakie]

open your oil cap and take a good wiff. Can you smell petrol? or just oil?
Check the sump for water.
Does your fuel tank cap seat correctly? possibility of any water in your fuel system?
all may contribute?
What are your plugs like?
Last service?

Process of ellimination.....

Well that sounds reasonable ... I mean it is an EL250 'Eliminator'

Seriously tho, the sump seems to be OK for water, the plugs will be new and I guess the prep work the dealer did counts as a service? Thanks for the other suggestions though. I'll check those out tomorrow night