Helped a mate out at the weekend. His son needs an A2 restricted bike and his granddad had a 2004 Bandit 600 that he wasn’t using and hasn’t for many years so he gave it to the grandson. Very poetic.
My mate had a new battery for it, we went over to start it and ride it the couple miles to its new home. What I was told was “It’ll be fine with some new fuel, it was MOTed a couple of years ago”. What we found was the last MOT was 5 years ago and it’d been sat in a garage with an empty tank. The rust inside wasn’t a great sight. On the plus side, everything else worked, the brakes and fork seals were perfect. Bike’s only got 6500 miles.
Truth be told, it started and ran enough to ride it and then we set to work. This was the state of the fuel tap.
Needle’s looked alright.
Most of this rust flaked of
We finished with a bike that runs on choke (poorly) and not at all on throttle or idle, Hoping some carb cleaner in the bell mouths will help. Tank’s going to get a soak with Deox.
Oh and as a bonus, I pulled the main fuse to check it and the plastic came away from the metal! not seen that happen before.
