Britbike forum Forums British Motorcycle specific Brands Triumph bulletin board Did not winterize

Bikes have been sitting since November. Did nothing last fall except bring the batteries inside and put them on a tender. Put a battery in the 72 and it started on the 3rd kick, after I remembered to turn the key on. Old Kalafornicate gas is working just fine. Starts, idles and runs like a rocket. Not a BSA rocket.
Maybe I'm just lucky?

you needa Tri-Spark

The Trident gets ridden at least once a month. During the winter in Tennessee we are blessed with a few tolerable days. I only use no ethanol fuel, which seems to stay good longer, though it can take a few kicks to start after a few weeks idle.
The Bonneville's battery is in the shop, gets charged occasionally. Gasoline is not a problem, the tank is in my shed awaiting painting.
The BMW gets started every couple of weeks to keep the battery up. That thing will run on 2-year old regular.

Desco,unpossible,everyone knows Ca gas pings in the tank and goes bad in 7 minutes.

I keep STA-BIL in my fuel in the cold months of win-tah.

Steve

This is scientifically accurate

I don't winterize any of my bikes. I always keep battery minders on them and only have non-ethanol gas in the tanks, except for my diesel bike. I always start and ride each bike at least once per month, but usually more often. My 68 Bonneville, my 75 Norton 850 Commando and my 69 BSA 441 Victor always start right up, even in cold weather. My M1030M1 diesel bike doesn't particularly like cold weather, but it always starts up after about 3 tries in very low temps with the glow plug heated. I find that just about any vehicle does much better if driven fairly often and not left unused for months.

Hi Gary Caines; I think the same about most vehicles. Due to an accident, I parked one of my Triumph for a year or more and had no more spark; a new magneto; but refused to makes sparks; at some point after many weeks of cleaning; and disassembling etc; decided to cooperate again.
I do not understand that thing about to not use the bikes in Winter. Alright; in many places fall the snow, but still you can kick start the engines etc
I think that is one of the problems to have many bikes.
Here the problem is the Humidity; just kills everything

If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all. As a result of these comments, I decided it was time to take all four of my bikes out for a ride. All 4 started right up. I rode the BSA, the Bonneville and my M1030M1 diesel about 10 miles each. I then got on my Norton. About two miles from home on the return trip, I got a flat tire on the rear. Fortunately, I wasn't going very fast, but it went completely flat in less than a minute. I had to push it some distance slightly up hill to get it to a safe place to leave it until I could get it home. It is very heavy and the flat tire made it difficult to roll. At least it ran great until the flat tire. Time to order a new tube.

Although in the past I was careful to always start up the bikes once or twice over the winter, this past year I didn't due to a busy schedule. I'm afraid my 70 Bonnie with new AMAL Premiers only a few years ago, has gotten "clogged up" over the winter. A trial start up had it unable to idle and running quite rough, so I am assuming the carbs got gunked up.

Obviously it could be really bad or not too bad. I'm wondering what my chances are that I could clear up the jets by removing the pilot screw and squirting some carb cleaner into to port, along with spraying into the small holes in the carb mouth, along with draining the gas obviously and replacing with fresh. Or should I just plan to remove the carbs and do a soak and start replacing/cleaning all the jets? Along the lines of this thread, if I do perform a complete dissassembly of the carbs, are any of the various carburetor soaks compatible with the carb metal, or should I just very carefully clean all passages with a spray can of carb cleaner?

Overall, the carbs shouldn't be horribly bad, as they were new carbs a few years ago, and the bike "ran perfectly when parked", but any advice on the general approach to cleaning up the carbs in such a situation would be appreciated, and could be helpful to others.

My TR6SR winterization was fuel stabilizer in a full tank and general clean-up. Took the battery out and kept it inside and charged. Start-up routine consisted of a thorough look over and check of tire pressure. Bike started up right away and ran well. Went for a ride to lunch the following Friday.

Yep, this.

My "overwinter blues" including interminable sessions cleaning AMAL pilot jets and freeing up stuck float needles, all ended when I discovered "Marine Sta-Bil" and non-ethanol fuel. It doesn't happen any more. Charge up the battery, air up the tires, get the oil out of the sump and back into the tank, and you don't worry about the carbs any more ....

Lannis

E5 (or E0) petrol, fuel stabiliser and drain the carb(s) before layup.

My Matchless 500 started first kick this week after resting for several months, part of the "wake-up" ritual involves spraying contact cleaner into the magneto

I have ethanol free fuel here in Switzerland, (it all is).

I drained my tank and carbs also. This year I put some 2 stroke oil in the tank for the winter. In the spring I washed it out with a cup of petrol.

Bike was hard to start and kept stalling. TIcking did not seem to really help much. Eventually when I got it to start, had to keep the revs up. Sometimes it would run for half an hour and sometimes it would just die 15 seconds later.

Took out the pilot jets and the air screw , let a bit of petrol flush the carb. Then sprayed the jet orifice with carb cleaner and bobs your uncle , runs and idles perfectly now.

A bit weird, was it the oil? Who Knows, but was the only difference to my annual storage routine.

Also checked fuel level and right carb level seems to have drifted a tad high, about half of the 0.21" recommended for premiers.

We have had E10 here in US for some years now.
If you just use it neat then you get a horrible cream colored gunge in the jets--particularly the pilot jets.
I add Stabil to every fill of gas and don't have any problems.
Even over the winter--when the weather means at least 3-4 months of non riding weather-- I dont do anything different and the bikes start up OK in the Spring.
HTH

The only thing I did do was drain the float bowls and leave the plugs siting on the engine case where I can see them. I do this if I know I wont be riding for a while. Saves a lot of grief.