[hoverer]

Okay gents, I'm stumped. I'm also pretty heartbroken because I thought my bike was in the clear after it rode great for 25 miles.

Here are the details:

-My 09 KLR has essentially not been started in 4 months. I wasn't planning on it sitting for the whole summer, but couldn't ride it because I was recovering from an injury. Was pretty worried about the ethanol in the gas clogging up the carb.

-I rode it once about 3 months into this period for about 20 miles but the battery died at the end of that ride so it sat for another month.

-Just got a new battery in it and was relieved that it fired right up and ran really well for a ride around the neighborhood for about 20 minutes.

-Took the bike to work this morning and it stalled getting off the highway after about 17 miles. This morning's ride was about 90% highway riding at 65+ mph. It ran great until the last 45 seconds when it began to sputter and then quickly stalled. It felt like it ran out of gas but I'm not sure. However, I have a see-thru fuel line from the petcock to the carb which still had fuel in it. Switched the tank to reserve and tried to re-start it; it almost caught but didn't quite fire up. Did this 2 or 3 times with no luck.

I knew there was a little but of fuel in the fuel line, but thought maybe I emptied out the bowl in the carb, so I completed a relatively short walk of shame to the gas station a 1/2 mile away and got a gallon of gas for it.

Put the gallon in it and tried to start her up and it didn't even catch a little. Totally wore out the brand new battery trying to start it again without any sign of it catching. Both with the choke on and off.

Then had my buddy tow me around the parking lot to try and drop-start it. The engine was spinning and sort of sounded like it was running while spinning, but giving it throttle generated no power whatsoever.

I'm at the point where I think it may be either a complete clog somewhere in the fuel system, an air bubble in the fuel system, or potentially an issue with the ignition.

Anyone have any tips for diagnosing the cause? And more importantly, getting her running again??

 

[CheapBassTurd]

Sounds like a carb issue described.

Welcome to the site. Since you mentioned it sputtering, and also
trying to run during a pull start, no fuses are blown and there's a spark there.

Did rodents make a nest in the airbox? (air starvation) it could have come apart and
clung to the element.

Next is a bit of crud or mini-blob of decomposing gas ending up clogging the inlet at
the float valve. It's usually a pilot-jet clog as the holes are tiny, but if this happened
at highway speeds you were on the needle and main combo. This leads me to believe
the problem lies further up from the jets.

hoefully a carb cleaning, frsh tank of gas, and a jumpstart are all you need,

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeap

I have the '09 too. Great scooter!! (I've had a breakdown tho also, and busted a
few parts)

 

[Damocles]

CONTAMINATED FUEL, from the symptoms described. Could be condensation (water), or ethanol junk.

I'd drain float bowl (li'l ol' 3 mm hex socket screw at bottom of carb, and get some righteous fuel into the carb and give it a try (maybe, jump from a car battery, since your motorcycle battery is run down).

How do you get righteous fuel into the carb? You can disconnect the fuel line at the petcock, and connect a funnel to it, and pour enough gasoline in to fill the float bowl. Or, you can drain your fuel tank and fill with fresh, righteous gas (drain from the RESERVE petcock position (lower part of fuel tank affected); you'll have to apply some vacuum to the petcock to open it). Drain it as much as you can, replacing the old fuel with known quality gasoline.

Still won't start? Sometimes, STARTING FLUID will persuade a balky engine to start; then, it will run off its own fuel supply.

Finally, there's the old (but laborious) solution of disassembling and cleaning the carburetor.

Combustible fue mixturel/compression/spark ought to get it, in time.