Motorcycle Repair: Honda vt500c shadow, honda vt500c, long periods

Question
Hey Chris, I am trying to get a Honda VT500c Shadow going after sitting many years. It was working when parked. I drained the tank and carbs, tuned, changed all fluids etc. It started right up. It takes 20 minutes for it to warm up and then I really have to feather the throttle to get higher rpms. The higher range of rpms seem to work fine, just the lower ones have a big hesitation. I took carbs off and sprayed and soaked it with carb cleaner. Any ideas? Thanks, Kevin

Answer
Hi Kevin.

After setting up for very long periods, soaking the carbs will noe necessarily clean them up enough to run right.  You should be the carbs properly cleaned out and that should fix the problem.  Also, even though you drained the fuel tank prior to storage, there is still likely to be residue, so remove the tank and reseal it.  That will seal out any residue from the old fuel and prevent aditional contamination of the freshly cleaned carbs.

Good luck and ride safe.
FALCON