Carb problems

Question: #1)
I  have purchased a 1989 police 1000 that has 18000 miles and been sitting for 8 years. It just about ran. I have removed and cleaned the carbs. I balanced the carbs and it seemed to run OK. I removed the carb stick and the engine would no longer hold an idle without bringing the enrichener slightly on. I tried a road test figuring that at some point the engine would find a point that it would run OK with the enrichener off but no difference was noticed on or off no matter what rpm the engine felt as if it was not running on all cylinders. Compression is OK @ 140 to 150 psi, no sign of a head gasket leak that I can see. When the oil was changed prior to carb work and road test it smelled of gas and it will occasionally backfire through the carbs now. I believe this is an ignition problem , possibly over advanced timing causing the backfiring. Do you have any ideas ? I hate to bring this to a dealer, as I live in Massachusetts and the Kawasaki never had a strong following. Finding someone with the knowledge of this motor is tough. Thank you for your time.
Douglas Cunningham


The compression numbers that you listed are a little low for this model but gauges do vary. The ignition is fixed and cannot be adjusted without slotting the pickup plate so I doubt that is your problem. Check the ignition advancer to make sure it moves freely and doesn't stick. It sounds to me like your carbs are still plugged up, particularly the pilot jet circuit. If you have to pull the enrichener on to make it idle, it definitely is not pulling fuel up the pilot jet. I would pull the pilot jets out/the pilot adjusting screws out and spray a decent carb cleaner into the pilot jet opening and make sure it comes out of the adjusting screw hole and the air correction jet. If you have it available, I would totally disassemble the carbs and soak them in a good cleaner to make sure all the passages are clear. Out here on the left coast the EPA has taken all the good chemicals away from us so all we have are ultrasonic cleaners. I haven't been in Mass. since 1985 so I don't know what's available out there. A five gallon pail of Berryman parts cleaner or something similar would probably work good if it is available. Pull all the rubber parts out and soak the carb bodies/float bowls/jets for a couple hours. You could also check with the local automotive shops to see what they use. If you can't find anybody local to help you out the only thing I could recommend is sending me the carbs. The only downside to that is the carbs really need to be installed on the motorcycle to be fine tuned, but at least I could make sure all the circuits are clear and the baseline settings are proper.

Question #2)
I have a 1982 Kawasaki Police 1000. The bike has been in storage for many years. I restarted the engine recently. It started and ran fine. However, after idling for a few minutes gasoline started coming out of tubes connected to the carburetor assembly. It seems that these tubes (4 of them; one for each carb) are intended to carry out the fuel overflow. I have never seen a system like this and I don't know what to do about it. Any suggestions? Thanks.  Amir Kamouneh
 


First off, does this motorcycle have a kickstarter on it? If it does, it's not a 1982 Kawasaki KZ1000-P series. Sounds like what you're describing is a earlier model called a "C" model. What you're seeing is fuel leaking past the float valves and draining out of the overflow hoses. The fix is to either clean the float needles/seats if they're dirty or replace them if they're worn. The parts are available from K&L supply much cheaper than your local Kawasaki dealer would get for the OEM parts. The downside is K&L only sells to dealers so you will have to go through a dealer for the parts. Beware of unscrupulous dealers that charge Kawasaki prices for K&L parts, that's some major price gouging going on there. I think the price is around $25 per kit per carburetor. If they're charging you more than that, email me back and I will check on the price for you.
 

Question #3)
I had a situation with my '93 kz1000p. The bike was running fine for about an hour, and suddenly at idle it started dying. If I kept the throttle up, it would run, as soon as I released it, it stopped. Any clue?
 


That problem could have a thousand answers, but I will try to cover a couple of them. If it runs fine everywhere but at idle, loads up and dies, you either have a stuck open float valve in the carb or a bad diaphragm on the fuel petcock. You can pull the spark plugs out and inspect them, whichever one is sooty black is the cylinder with the problem. If it's the #2 cylinder (from the left) could be either a float valve or diaphragm. Any other cylinder would just be the float valve (assuming that the vacuum hose to the petcock is connected to the #2 carb). Usually when the float valves are sticking the fuel backs up into the airbox and drips out the bottom (as long as the drain hole isn't plugged).
 It could also be an electrical problem; those usually cause two cylinders at a time to quit working. You just have to listen to it and figure out if it's running on 2 or 3 cylinders. Also you can pull the two outside plug wires off to see what that sounds like (will only run on two then). The ignition system has two coils, one fires #1 & #4, the other fires #2 & #3. The rule of thumb here is two dead cylinders is electrical, one is carburetion or mechanical. Hope this helps you.