ER-5 Lack of Power plus other issues

[nitro159]

Hi all, this will be a long one...

This weekend my dad was riding my ER-5, unbeknownst to him the last time he removed the tank he put the fuel pipes on backwards so Main, was now reserve, thus he ran out of fuel, got to the nearest petrol station topped up and off he went....to the next roundabout when suddenly one cylinder gave up on him, and then the second one did too... leaving the bike lifeless and needing a lift home.

We previously had this issue with the cylinders so worked out the fuel pump had torn itself a new one (literally) and replaced it on tuesday with a brand new one. Which, did nothing. So it wasn't what we thought, now come today we've replaced both spark plugs which worked... a little.

Let me put it like this, I got out the drive, around the corner and up to 30 miles an hour, but... no matter what gear or how hard I tried it wouldnt go faster. Needless to say it was a lovely ride, with one cylinder popping away every now and again.

Fast forward to leaving work, I warmed it up, both cylinders fine, pulled away, and I stalled it... at 5000 RPM!! It just dropped power immediately and the left hand cylinder decided to pull a sickie! (If only I had at this point!)

I stalled 3 times in total on my return trip and at times the bike wouldnt even try to get past 40 MPH or 6000 RPM whichever which gear I tried in.

I will admit at this point I probably did more harm than good by pushing it so far but my normal riding isn't fast at all and I'm restricted to boot.

My father took out the restrictors to no avail this evening, same symptoms and we've no real idea where to go next, the carbs were drained on tuesday and the new spark plugs and leads are great! Just that left hand cylinder isn't waking up

Any ideas?

[Noxious89123]

Seeing as the problems started after running it on reserve, I'd make an educated guess and say that it's sucked some crap into the carbs from the bottom of the tank, so taking the carbs off and cleaning them would probably be a good start!
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'06 Honda CBR125RW-6 ~ '00 Honda CBR600F-Y ~ '07 Honda CBR600RR-7 ~ Bikeless
'53 Ford Ka 1.3 ~ '03 Vauxhall Astra SRi 1.8 ~ '52 Vauxhall Astra SRi 2.2 ~ '53 Vauxhall Astra GSi

[nitro159]

Hate to say it but we beat you to it, already drained and cleaned, we're not too keen on taking off the head (it's an old bike with just over 17000 on it) so we're trying to avoid that whilst repairing it ourselves, plenty of parts still

[Walloper]

No need to touch the head.
An engine will run fine so long as it gets fuel, air and sparks.
Head damage would only be an issue to look at if it dropped a valve, lost the rings etc. which is not the problem you describe.
The dirty carburettor was my 1st guess too.

And 30 mins on the naughty step for your da for NOT marking the fuel lines before disconnecting. He should be pushing you around on the bike until he gets it fixed.

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W-ireless A-rtificial L-ifeform L-imited to O-bservation P-eacekeeping and E-fficient R-epair

[yambabe]

Crap or more likely water in the carbs would be my best guess too.

Suspect you may have contaminated petrol if you've drained and cleaned the carbs (did anything untoward come out of them?) so it might be worth draining the tank and refilling that too.
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Sod falling in love, I wanna fall in chocolate.

[Noxious89123]

[nitro159]

Sorry! Well we're now going to redo that anyway as that seems to be the main concensus of the problem. Also past that, would the CDI Unit be faulty?

[whitedevil]

Have you checked both plugs are giving a good spark? Did you fit new ht leads? If not i'd pull the boots off and trim the ht leads back a 1/4" to make sure you are getting good connection, also clean up the inside of the boots with a wire brush.
After that i'd be looking at the carbs.
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GPZ500 sold ~ CBR600FS-2 sold ~ ZX6R sold ~ Street Triple R

[nitro159]

Sorry for the delay

Carbs double checked. We've heard of a part called a "Pickup" but we're not sure what it does or where it goes/is. Anyone got any ideas?

Other than that, which we found quite often looking through spare parts on ebay which made us curious, we've made no progress on it

[Walloper]

Only pick-up I can think of is the crank position indicator which is sometimes called or could be referred to as a Pick Up.
As it picks up a signal from the crank.

https://www.motorsloop.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=109_110_449&products_id=17692&language=en

Guessing.
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W-ireless A-rtificial L-ifeform L-imited to O-bservation P-eacekeeping and E-fficient R-epair