winterizing carburated bike

[upside22]

This question is actually about my son's v star 1100 but I figure this is a good place to get answers.

When you winterize a carburated bike do you shut off the fuel petcock and let the motor run till it dies (like I used to do with my 2-cycle Mecury boat motor)?

Or do you just fill it with gas to minimize condensation, use something like Stabil fuel stablizer, and let the bike run for a while to distribute the stablizer throughout the carbs?

If you let the carbs run dry do you put some oil in the gas to protect the engine while it is running dry and so it will coat the metal parts?

Or do you just go out and start it every couple of weeks to keep things stirred up?

[MAS Tequila]

Run the carbs dry, then add Sta-bil to the gas and fill the carbs.

MT

[cactusjack]

Winterizing??? How depressing.

[ringadingh]

I fill the gas tank and run the carbs dry. That should do it. You can charge the battery every couple months for a couple hours as well.

[upside22]

Originally Posted by cactusjack

Winterizing??? How depressing.

Yeah, I know. But he's a senior at college getting ready to graduate in Dec with a BS in microbiology. He has no place to garage his bike and almost no time to ride it anyway, when he's not studying he's working in the lab on genetic research for a professor.

I don't have time to ride two bikes and keep them up so his is going to get winterized until we find out where he is going to land after Dec. If it's grad school I've been telling him SOUTH! SOUTH!!! Someplace like Austin, Phoenix, or San Diego. Then I can RIDE there and visit him! And we can spend some time riding together.

If it's not grad school then we'll just have to see I guess.

[macmac]

What state? What's yer winta' like?

[AlabamaNomadRider]

I would do as MAS says to do. I would want fuel in every place that fuel goes. Be sure and get the recommended amount of Sta-Bil in and it should be fine. I wouldn't want the carbs to be dry. Don't trust anything to sit with nothing in them. Dries everything out with nothing in them.

[cajun2wheels]

I would also put a battery tender on the battery.Cheap insurance for your battery.

[recumbentbob]

this covers it pretty well in detail

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/winterize.htm

[waterman]

Personally, I am not fond of draining the carbs. I have had to do a gasket replacement on more than one when I used to drain them. I use sta-bil, fill the tank and then run it till I know that the entire system has some in it. Shut off the pitcock (just in case) and hook up the battery tender. On the battery tender, I only run it a couple of days a month. Normally, I see it shut off after a minute or two.

If the weather isn't down right frigid, I will start the bike and run it til it is warm and then shut if off. This replaces the fogging of the cylinders.

[Top Cat]

Fill it with gas, add stabilizer , run it to circulate the stabilized gas, Shut it down, shut off petcock, hook up Shumacker smart charger and hope for a short winter.
I think starting a dry engine every week or so does more harm than good.

[upside22]

Originally Posted by macmac

What state? What's yer winta' like?

Topeka, KS

It's not the worst place to winter but we do get below zero weather.

[macmac]

TC is right. Do not strat cold bikes once a week or once a month for a few minutes. Just don't start it at all unless you can run the engine 45 minutes or longer. That means go ridin'

All you do then is wear the bearings from a dry start AND make water in the OIL, and in the exhaust.

Carbs like a coating of stabel and then to be drained dry. The gas tank wants to be as full as possible, which is more important with ethenol gas. The ethenol is hydroscopic, which means if you expose a lot of surface area to the air that fuel will suck up water.

This is a big problem in NH when a bike must be stored cold, because the cold of nights and the heat of days in early spring make water inside and out the my bike. My bike lives in a enclosed trailer in winter. On a sunny day it can get pretty warm in there.

I bring my battery and seats in to be in about 50/55 degress in the cellar. Over years i have seen a lot of seats ruined from too much cold.

I like to fog my engine inside and install the plugs loose. I remove the air filter andd stuff a clean rag in the intake, and another pair of rags up the pipes to keep out mice.

So far mice can't get into the trailer, but I ain't takin any chances.

I like to put the bike up clean, but waxed and let the wax dry, and coat chrome in luster lace and seal the chrome.

I like to change the last oil change of the season and ride no more than 200 more miles.

Oil nearly ready to change is holding acids in suspention and that acid will eat bearings made of babbit and will eat alloy where there is no bearings at all. I have seen terrible web case corrosion before, and just don't want that in my engines.

Again making water in the oil is a great way to enable these acids to go right at eatting alloy parts.

[waterman]

Mac and TC, I should have stated that in our area, I can generally get a couple of days a winter to ride for a short ride. Not exactly warm but not cold. That is why I don't bother with the fogging of the cylinders. We generally don't have the extended cold that you do. That is generally but not always true.

[macmac]

Where we all live is alway a problem, since what i do in NH frozen over Hell isn't what a guy in Fla would ever have to do.

It isn't the cold that stops me so much as we ride snow sleds here, but the salt will eat my Nomad right up.

There are nice days in Early spring I can't ride because the roads are white in salt.

I can tell you Nomads have 0 salt protection. There is nothing on any Nomad that will protect if from road salt.