Full bike clean after a few years of sitting idle

A

ALD

Well-known member
Have not started my bike for a few years but now I am giving it a through clean & will be cleaning the carbs, changing the fuel filter, & a complete oil change.
The full tank of gas is a few years old & will be draining it out but before I fill it up with fresh gas, also I am thinking of removing the tank & cleaning the inside with isopropyl alcohol.

Would I be harming anything in the tank by doing this?
 
Not in the least, isopropyl alcohol is basically gas line anti-freeze.

Flush your brake fluid, it's done.
 
Hope you ran some stabilizer through it before putting it into storage, or ran the carbs dry alternately.

Otherwise you'll probably be in for a full teardown as the odds are good that there will be a lot of varnish in there.
 
PrivatePilot said:
Hope you ran some stabilizer through it before putting it into storage, or ran the carbs dry alternately.

Otherwise you'll probably be in for a full teardown as the odds are good that there will be a lot of varnish in there.
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A few years ago had put stabilizer into the tank & let it run to get it into the carbs then left it alone till now, but have not attempted to start the bike yet as the gas in the tank is most likely bad & the carbs are probably full of varnish.
 
ALD said:
A few years ago had put stabilizer into the tank & let it run to get it into the carbs then left it alone till now, but have not attempted to start the bike yet as the gas in the tank is most likely bad & the carbs are probably full of varnish.
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But did not run the carbs dry as condensation may get in there if that was done.
 
When you say stored for a couple of years do you mean 2 years or 3 or more? Did you use non ethanol premium gas for that last tank. Stabilized gas is supposed to be good for 2 years.

I'd drain the tank, I don't think you need to flush it, but it's not going to hurt anything to do this., change the oil and filter, change the brake fluid and then start the bike. If it doesn't run 100% I'd dose it with Seafoam for a tankful or two and maybe this would cleanup any crap in the carb(s)
 
Seafoam: Petroleum Distillate, solvent and Isopropyl alcohol. Then where do all those pollutants go? <- into your engine where they can burn onto your valves and rings. Personally I would just clean the carbs, all of the problems will be in the bottom half of them anyway, the top half is all air.
 
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ReSTored said:
When you say stored for a couple of years do you mean 2 years or 3 or more? Did you use non ethanol premium gas for that last tank. Stabilized gas is supposed to be good for 2 years.

I'd drain the tank, I don't think you need to flush it, but it's not going to hurt anything to do this., change the oil and filter, change the brake fluid and then start the bike. If it doesn't run 100% I'd dose it with Seafoam for a tankful or two and maybe this would cleanup any crap in the carb(s)
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The tank was filled 3 yrs ago at Petro Canada & used regular also added Yamaha brand stabilizer & put in more than what is noted on the bottle, by doing this maybe it killed off the ethanol.
Brake fluid flush was done last year along with new front & rear pads but will be changing the oil & filter along with a full carb clean.
 
Change the gas to shell 91 and see what happens. After running a tank of gas through If it still runs like crap you can clean the carbs then. No point in overthinking just try and see what happens and deal with the problems you find not the ones you could have but don't.

Sent from my moto g(8) plus using Tapatalk
 
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