SV650 fuel in cylinder?

[discodan]

Hi Guys,

My 99 SV650 is very sick at the moment and I can't get it to start.

The short story:
After repairing a rust leak in my tank, I think I have petrol flooding my cylinder and mixing with my oil, which may have hydrolocked the engine.


The long story:
- Got a fuel leak and ended up getting a rust hole soldered up and gave it a treatment of POR15 tank sealant.

- Put the tank back on and connected all the tubes back up (pretty sure I connected them up right but didn't have a chance to record which one went where when I took the tank off in the first place).

- Put some fuel in and noticed that it was leaking from somewhere around the carbs so disconnected it again and checked the fuel lines.

- At this stage I figured that maybe I had the vacuum and fuel lines around the wrong way (the tubes are the same size) so swapped them. I have a feeling that this was my downfall.

- With everything hooked up the way I had to begin with, I tried starting the bike again. The starter motor seemed to be strugling to turn the motor even with plenty of charge so with the help of a friend tried jump starting it a few times and never really got it going.

- Eventually started the engine with some engine starter spray in the airbox and had it idling for about half a minute before going to bed.

- The next day the bike wouldn't start again and someone mentioned that there may be fuel in the cylinder and that this could get into the engine oil! Sure enough, the oil in the window looked terrible so I changed this and had another go at starting the bike. Sounded like the engine got flooded again and finally there was a clunk from the motor so I gave up.

- Have taken one of the spark plugs out and it was covered in an oily substance that smelled of petrol.


Does anyone have any tips on what I should do next? It seems like petrol flooding the cylinder is the problem but maybe something in my carbs is the root cause.

Totally gutted to have missed Vic Club Rnd 2

[Taz]

Take to mechanic.

[erik]

Does anyone have any tips on what I should do next?

Get yourself a service manual:
"Suzuki SV650 1999 2000 Service Manual" (this is the best one I've found so far for the early model sv650s, it even has the extra info on the faired version.)

I'd imagine you'd flood the rear cylinder pretty quickly if you connected the vacuum and fuel hoses to the wrong fittings on the fuel valve. The vacuum hose (2 in photo) goes from the bottom valve fitting to the rear carb manifold. The fuel hose (1 in photo) goes from the top fitting to the fuel pump mounted on the right of the bike's frame.

I guess if I were in your situation, I'd check the hose connections again, disconnect the vacuum hose and take out the rear spark plug and turn it over a bit to get any fuel out of the rear cylinder. Then change the oil if you think it's got fuel in it, put it back together and hope that it goes.

The manual mentions that the fuel valve can be damaged if you put too high a vacuum on it, I don't know what sort of a vacuum the fuel pump creates, but you might want to check the valve too.

But that's just me guessing at what to do, I've never had to deal with a flooded engine like that before. Maybe someone else with more experience will offer advice.

[edit:]

- Put some fuel in and noticed that it was leaking from somewhere around the carbs so disconnected it again and checked the fuel lines.

Just realised: If it was leaking around the carbs when the engine wasn't running, I'd say your fuel vacuum valve on the bottom of the tank must be stuffed if it's letting fuel through without a vacuum being applied to it.

[CookMySock]

you might have bent a rod doing that.


DB

[discodan]

Thanks for the info guys. I will download that Manual when I get home today.

I have double checked that the lines are going to the right places so maybe the fuel vacuum valve has had it. The funny thing is now there is no petrol leaking at all and there is still plenty of fuel in the tank.

you might have bent a rod doing that.

Yea, really hoping that is not the case. I was just concentrating on trying to get the thing going for the race and didn't think that reconnecting the fuel tank could potentially cause so many dramas!

[surfer]

How long was the bike standing idle whilst you did your meckaniking? It may be that your battery has got a bit run down and that it needs a charge. Might be worth your while to check the voltage.

I wouldn't have thought starting the bike would damage your engine, running it for a time with oil that is full of fuel would. You would also hear lots of knocking sounds before anything major happened. (Been there and done that, and engine was ok).

So hopefully you haven't done anything drastic to the engine. In which case it will be your carb set-up. Sorry I don't know your bike so can't help on carb set-up.

[FROSTY:Me]

Rip the plugs out--it aint gonna run with fouled plugs.
Whilst ya got em out put the plugs back in the caps and rest em on the heads.
Crank the bike over a few times.
If its still slow I'd look at the started motor

[Katman]

Pull the vacuum hose off the fuel tap and if it looks even slightly wet it means you will be sucking petrol through the tap diaphragm.

[discodan]

Thanks guys, at least I am learning heaps everytime something goes wrong.

The battery should be ok as I have been recharging it with a charger.

I'm gonna have another go at it in the weekend - take the plugs out and check the vacuum hose for signs of petrol. Hopefully the new oil is ok, so expensive!

[discodan]

Well, thanks for your help I have got the bike started now and it is running fine.

I took the fuel tap apart and double checked where the vacuum and fuel hoses should go and after leaving it for a while the bike started fine.

So I replaced the oil, filter and spark plugs and the bike started easier than ever.

Now my problem is that it seems that petrol has gotten into the oil sump again. The bike hasn't flooded since I put the latest lot of oil in so it must have either been left over from the last oil change or getting in some other way.

Anyway, when I first look at the oil window, the oil looks really nice and clean. After running the bike for a bit it looks like this:

[kiwi cowboy]

Well, thanks for your help I have got the bike started now and it is running fine.

I took the fuel tap apart and double checked where the vacuum and fuel hoses should go and after leaving it for a while the bike started fine.

So I replaced the oil, filter and spark plugs and the bike started easier than ever.

Now my problem is that it seems that petrol has gotten into the oil sump again. The bike hasn't flooded since I put the latest lot of oil in so it must have either been left over from the last oil change or getting in some other way.

Anyway, when I first look at the oil window, the oil looks really nice and clean. After running the bike for a bit it looks like this:

could be wrong but the oil may just be looking like that beeing churned round the engine and not be up to temp. just a thuoght

[FROSTY:Me]

Dude get the bike good n hot then see how it looks. Even after dumping the oil theres gonna be some contaminants round the engine.
When we have a really sludged up engine we will put in some cheap shit oil and run the engine then dump it again -then we put the good stuff in

[AllanB]

Does this model SV have a fuel tap with a 'prime' setting on it?

Check - if you have it set to prime this may be your problem. The prime setting continuously dumps fuel into your carbs. If it is just sitting there and on prime the carbs fill up and petrol usually flows into your cylinder and down the bore into the oil. Run the bike with petrol in the oil for a while and apparently it will shit the bearings.

Prime is a good setting when your bike has been sitting unused for a while as you can load-up the carbs before turnover. It also gets used in the tuning of CV carbs.

The idea using a cheap oil to flush the engine is a good one.

[CookMySock]

Does it "make" a little bit of oil every time you run it ? ie is the oil level going up ?

DB

[discodan]

could be wrong but the oil may just be looking like that beeing churned round the engine and not be up to temp. just a thuoght

Yea, that was what I thought but I don't remember it ever being like this before and I can smell petrol when I put my nose to the oil filler.

Dude get the bike good n hot then see how it looks. Even after dumping the oil theres gonna be some contaminants round the engine.
When we have a really sludged up engine we will put in some cheap shit oil and run the engine then dump it again -then we put the good stuff in

I have run the bike for about 3 mins at a time and revving it to about 5k, it seems to rev smoothly and responsively but I didn't want to take it for a ride incase I wreck something.

I put some oil flush stuff in before I changed the oil last time hoping that it would help clean it out and I was leaning the bike over as much as I could to try and get every last drop of oil out before I put some more good stuff in.

Does this model SV have a fuel tap with a 'prime' setting on it?

Nah, it doesn't even have a reserve or off option on the fuel tap, only the choke.

Does it "make" a little bit of oil every time you run it ? ie is the oil level going up ?

I wondered about this too but it seems to stay the same unless it is going up very gradually. No smoke, leaks or any other symptoms apart from looking shitty in the oil window.


Thanks for the suggestions, you guys helped me get the bike running again so keep them coming!