ok first a little background info, I am a 19 year old college student with quite a bit of mechanical experience although I am fairly new to motorcycles. I recently purchased a non running 1995 ninja 250 for cheep to see if I could get it running. it only has 10,xxx miles.
before buying I sprayed gas into the air intake and the bike did fire but died a few seconds later.
the first thing I did when i got it home was to take the carbs off and do a full cleaning and bench sync. after I was done they looked almost perfect.
I put the carbs back on hooked everything back up and tried to start it. eventually I got it to idle with full choke but the second i touched the throttle even a little the bike would instantly die. there was also quite a bit of oil seeping out from the valve cover gasket. i thought this was odd so I took it back into the garage and pulled the cover off.
now it gets interesting. what I found was 2 missing rocker arms (exhaust side). I found them, unbroken in a corner, what caused this is who ever was in the engine before me did not torque down the things that hold that cam shaft down giving the shaft just enough room to come up and let the rocker arms fall out.
I'm not even sure how the engine was running at all but i put the arms back in and checked the valve clearance. they were just a tiny bit loose but ide rather they be loose then tight, I also checked the timing the best I could and it looked fine.
I put everything back together and tried to start it and it again idled, it sounded a little better this time and for a little while it would take the throttle about 1/4 of the way before bogging down. soon after though it started to die again and never ran with the coke on anything but full.
the idle was also very inconsistent going from 2k all the way to 6k even after i backed the idle adjustment screw all the way out.
this sounded like it was very lean for some reason but when I pulled the spark plugs (new) they were fairly black and a little wet, and right before I left I had the plugs out and turned It over for no reason really, and gas shot out of the left spark plug hole.
this is where I am right now, I really have no clue where to go from here.
any help would be appreciated
Thanks,
Charles
before buying I sprayed gas into the air intake and the bike did fire but died a few seconds later.
the first thing I did when i got it home was to take the carbs off and do a full cleaning and bench sync. after I was done they looked almost perfect.
I put the carbs back on hooked everything back up and tried to start it. eventually I got it to idle with full choke but the second i touched the throttle even a little the bike would instantly die. there was also quite a bit of oil seeping out from the valve cover gasket. i thought this was odd so I took it back into the garage and pulled the cover off.
now it gets interesting. what I found was 2 missing rocker arms (exhaust side). I found them, unbroken in a corner, what caused this is who ever was in the engine before me did not torque down the things that hold that cam shaft down giving the shaft just enough room to come up and let the rocker arms fall out.
I'm not even sure how the engine was running at all but i put the arms back in and checked the valve clearance. they were just a tiny bit loose but ide rather they be loose then tight, I also checked the timing the best I could and it looked fine.
I put everything back together and tried to start it and it again idled, it sounded a little better this time and for a little while it would take the throttle about 1/4 of the way before bogging down. soon after though it started to die again and never ran with the coke on anything but full.
the idle was also very inconsistent going from 2k all the way to 6k even after i backed the idle adjustment screw all the way out.
this sounded like it was very lean for some reason but when I pulled the spark plugs (new) they were fairly black and a little wet, and right before I left I had the plugs out and turned It over for no reason really, and gas shot out of the left spark plug hole.
this is where I am right now, I really have no clue where to go from here.
any help would be appreciated
Thanks,
Charles
