GSX250F won't start

[raspygold]

Hi guys,

This is my first post but I've been reading the forum for a little bit now.
Hopefully its in the right forum =)

I have a problem with a bike I bought about two weeks ago. It is a 1990 Suzuki GSX250F Across (low km's and just had a new WOF and full service a week before it was listed on Trade Me). I bought it and got it shipped down from Auckland to Wellington.
The bike was in perfect working order and started cold first time (with half choke) when the bike was dropped off at the transporting company's depot on Friday the 19th (September). However, they had a mix up at the company and instead of the bike arriving in Wellington on the Monday it arrived on Friday the 26th (September). When the bike arrived it won't start now.

The transport guys tried to start it when they dropped it off at my place, just using the electric start for over 5mins (drained the battery to nearly completely empty) and then gave up and said that they didn't know why it wouldn't start because it started first time when they put it onto the truck etc.

So over the past two days I've been spending a hell of a lot of time trying to start it up. It wouldn't start with electric start so I got my flatmate to help me crash start it. A couple of time I got it to kick into life, but it wasn't revving properly and the rev counter needle was shaking too. It wouldn't rev at all over 5k rpm even with full throttle. Whenever I put the clutch in or went into neutral the bike would conk out unless I was giving it pretty much full throttle.

This led me to believe it was the spark plugs being wet or dirty (possibly due to the transport guys flooding the carburetor or something. Here's what I've checked to far:

• It has fuel - full of gas even
• the spark plugs are now cleaned and dried, and are sparking to earth
• have checked the air filter, its fine
• have drained the carburetor

We've hooked up jumper cables to the bike's battery, charged it for a bit and tried to start the bike up (after cleaning and drying the spark plugs). The bike splutters and feels like its just about to kick into life - but doesn't.

As you can imagine this is really annoying as I haven't really even had a chance to ride the damn thing yet! Another thing that happened is that when we were trying to crash start the bike somehow a roofing nail got stuck in my front tyre and now the pressure has gone right down, so we can't try to crash start it until i get the puncture repaired =(

I doubt there could be something major wrong with the bike due to the comprehensive service its just, I'm just really not sure what could have happened in that week that would have made it not start properly. I did have full insurance for the transportation though, so I am wondering whether I should make a claim on that and make them cough up for the money to get it checked out at a mechanics or something.

If anyone has any ideas of other things to check or ideas to try, or even just your opinions I'd really appreciated. Thanks.

[raspygold]

Just another update. Tried to start the bike again (with jumpers), the bike was spitting out a bit of smoke, and then backfired about 5-6times...
Someone suggested that the valve timings might be out, but I'm not so sure.

[breakaway]

Can you verify that the battery terminals are 100% alright and not corroded or oxidised or anything?

I just read in another thread that a bouncy tacho can indicate a bad earth.

[raspygold]

Just an update.

Turns out the engine was just really really flooded. Cleaned the spark plugs again, got some more jumper cables and she's going now. I'm not sure how the spark plugs got so dirty etc but at least its going now and not backfiring. Thanks for reading anyway.

Its now revving properly too.

Now just to get my puncture repaired and she's all good.

[Jerry74]

Don't use that company again by the sounds of it...

Must of been playing with your bike

[imdying]

No, doesn't sound like anyone has played with it, just sounds typical of the breed.

[raspygold]

No, doesn't sound like anyone has played with it, just sounds typical of the breed.

Are they known to flood themselves? I know they sometimes have trouble with the choke clogging. It just seems weird that the bike was so flooded after a week of just transportation.

I'm pretty new to the whole owning a motorcycle thing, if you know of anything to keep an eye out for with this model I'd really appreciate it. It has low Kms (under 16k) so hopefully she's got a lot of life left ahead of her!

Thanks for your replies.

[smudge]

It could be due to a sticking float valve in the carburettor or it has had a little rest on its side. Chances are it had a rest ....