‘The jets looked like they had been under water’
Old Bandit required a major clean-up
This 2001 Suzuki
Bandit 600 had been stored outside for a couple of years when Rastislav ‘Raz’ Hulvk, the owner of the Real Motorcycle Workshop in Rugby, picked it up with the challenge of getting it going again.
Raz said: “I think that when the battery went flat, the owner lost interest in the machine.
“The Bandit’s overall condition wasn’t too bad, but when I unscrewed the oil filler cap you could smell and see the fuel/oil mixture swilling around in the cases.”
This didn’t bode well for the state of the carbs, and when Raz stripped them down it soon became apparent why the bike wouldn’t start.
“The carb internals looked like they had been underwater for two years and the overflow pipe was blocked, which is why the fuel had drained into the cases,” Raz added.
The carbs needed a full-strip and ultrasonic cleaning, but even then, it was a struggle to prise the brass jets out of the aluminium bodies. Raz had to use hot water and contact cleaner, washing them a few times until he could pull them out with pliers.
Getting a bike in this condition running again can end up costing more than the machine is worth. Keeping a tank brimmed with fuel will stop corrosion but isolate it from the fuel system and drain the carbs as well. For long-term storage you could use alkylate petrol, which can be left in a tank for up to five years without ‘going off’ like normal petrol.
It’s worth putting a bag over the exhaust pipe to seal it, disconnect the battery and even keep it on a shelf inside. In this case, it cost the owner £260 to get things working, so the bike lived another day…