New to the Bandit world, shame the bike doesnt work..

[Nige]

Hi there, just went and purchased a '94 bandit 400, one of (very few i gather) the UK models. I'm fairly new to the general biking world, although my knowledge of electronics is pretty sound my mechanical know-how is boardering on Zilch to be brutally honest. Bought the bike hoping to learn alot about how to fix and maintain e.t.c. but it's proved to be a bit of a steep learning curve, here's why:

Well bought the bike from a private sale, guy seemed fairly nice and worked in a garage (good sign i thought). Checked the bike out, seemed pretty good, idled a but lumpy but after 30 mins it ran smoothly, had an MOT done 2 weeks before, £700, bargain!

Rode the bike for a week with no problems, cept for having to start it with the choke every time, was an absolute joy flicking it round the country roads. Heaven.

*problem 1, AAAARGH*
Heading down the A47 to the grand city of Norwich when the bike starts to lose power, bit scary with cars and lorries swerving round you at 80mph, coast to a Lay By (thank god it was there) and start to worry as it starts to chuck it down. Everything to my untrained eye looked ok, half a tank of fuel, no fuel line problems, but the bloody thing wouldnt turn over and start. Fret for about 20 mins, then all of a sudden it starts first time perfectly. Well i didnt wanna complain so I headed off home, a bit wary. Got home fine, except that it seemed to lag a bit on acceleration, taking up to 2 seconds to kick in.
Racking my brain, i presumed that maybe there was water in the fuel tank as this would explain why it started perfectly after standing a bit, just to be safe i took it down my local garage to get it checked out. The mechanic said it was a carb problem and tried to drain the carbs. Turns out that it had never been touched, ever, despite the lovely guy i bought the bike from saying they had been stripped and cleaned   my bad i guess. Mechanic managed to completely wreck all the screw heads and didnt manage to get one off, god knows why he didnt use an impact screwdriver   never mind. There was alot of silt in the liquid that came out, i figured rust from the petrol tank getting in to the engine...something that shouldnt be happening since the guy assured me he had changed the petrol tank and had a receipt for it   what's going on!!!

*problem 2, more AAARGH*
Well it was ok-ish after that, bit reluctant to start and wouldnt idle properly, had to keep revving it to keep the engine going. Park up outside work, when i come back out after 5 minutes some *?$!* had knocked my bike over and just left it there. God hates me. Pick the bike up (damn it's top heavy) and decided to leave it there overnight just in case anything was inside the cylinders, figured some kinda damage would occur if i tried to start it up. Came back in the morning, tried to start the bike up and nothing, just a Clicking noise from the battery area. AHA i think, a problem i could fix. Got the bike home and took a look at the wiring, fixed a few bad connections, a number of lights appeared which i didnt know were there, but other than that, everything looks fine from the starter motor to the spark plugs, all good...except, I did notice a bit of dampness in the spark plug chamber bit..worried me a bit so I decided to get professional help.
2 days later..

Bugger me...blown head gasket, apparently its been like that for a while, quoted me £350 to fix it. They showed me the liquid in the spark plug chamber and said that was deffinate proof, which i though was a bit dodgy.

Argh why me, would the bike really have passed an MOT with all these problems? It seems to me I've been properly duped, which i'm not willing to let happen again. I'm worried the garage might try one on me as i'm fairly young (20) and have admited to them with having NO mechanical know how. I've talked to a few people and they think £350 is a bit steep.

Do you guys think £350 is ok, any tips??? Does this seem like a good diagnostic?? Any help at all would be appreciated guys  

Thanks for reading
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[PitterB4]

Well, my mechanical knowledge is mostly based on the past year and a half working on my Bandit so take this FWIW but, it seems reasonable to me that if your bike spent the night on it's side, gas could get in some pretty wierd places - particularly if all of your seals and orings aren't perfect.  Before I spent that kind of money, I think I'd pop the tank, pull the plugs and let the thing air out for a day or so.  If you're outside, I'd even hit the starter a few times.  If there's gas in the cylinders, it'll shoot out (litterally!).  Once everything is nice and dry, put it all back together and see if it will start.  

Good luck and

[TheKillerB]

I'm not familiar with the oiling system on the B4 (don't have my manual here), but I know that in the automotive world, a blown head gasket usually results in coolant in the oil.  I would look at the filler window and see if the oil looks unusual.  Remove the cap and see if it smells like oil usually smells or if it smells a little sweet like coolant.  Pop off your coolant cap (under the tank) and see if the coolant is normal color (or colour) to see if it is the normal green or if it's brownish (or the level is way down).  I know the times my bike has found itself on its side (fortunately not recently), it was very, very difficult to start since all the fuel dumped out of the bowls and filling the bowls back up requires a lot of cranking.  If anything, I would get a second opinion from another mechanic.  If things ever don't seem right, get a second opinion.  Don't tell them what the other guys said (puts an idea in their head), just tell them the situation.  Best of luck!!  Welcome to the world of B4s and more specifically our board, we love our bikes and hope that once all this clears up, you'll love yours.

John

[Nige]

Hey, thanks for the speedy replies guys    Yeah for the past 3 years after passing my test I've really been looking to get a bandit, my uncle in Hong Kong has a B1200 and it's a beautiful thing. This is my first (wobbly) step into the Bandit world but it'll be worth it in the end i'm sure of it. Thanks for the great welcome, you guys have pride of place on my favourites list and I shall be definately spreading the word  

Luckily when the bike got knocked over, it was only for a maximum of 5 minutes as I only popped in and back out. I've left the bike out with the plugs out for 4 days now, it's got a little better but not much, i can still see dampness at the bottom. As for the coolent, I checked and it seems to be clear on top and browny at the bottem. I'm guessing thats a killer sign  
I'll get that second opinion and we'll see, I might ask if I could do odd-jobs around the garage while they fix my bike and watch and learn, crazy idea but it would be a great learning experience.

Nigel

[Thief400]

There is no way that a blown head gasket will leak around the spark plugs!
Time to find another mechanic
Water sometimes collects there if you wash the bike alot or ride in the rain if the seals on the plug wires are old and hard.
This normally causes the wire to short out and cause the cylinder to misfire.
I would change your plug wires and make sure they seal around the cylinder head

This should fix most of your problems, the carb screws are very hard to get out even with the right tools, I replaced mine with allen head machine screws. the thread is 5.5x1.0 mm

[TheKillerB]

...but if you have a blown head gasket, can't coolant slip between the head and cylinder casting and into the cylinder?  That's where things get really bad for the engine if it's blown too bad because water/coolant poors in and the cylinder tries to compress it (but coolant doesn't ignite and there shouldn't be that much in there).

[Thief400]

I suspect that the spark plug chamber is the hole in the cylinder head that the plug sits down in not the combustion chamber.
Your are right about if it was a head gasket failure antifeeze will get into the combustion chamber, but combustion gases also get into the cooling system and overpressurize it blowing out all the antifreeze causing the engine to overheat. He never said he had that problem

[Nige]

It's only in the far left hand side spark plug chamber that there's dampness, i tried to see what it was and i think it's just oil now, nothing like water or coolant. However I did check in the coolant and there did seem to be a kinda browny deposit at the bottem??? It seemed pretty full to me. Sigh, it just keeps getting more and more confusing.

One other quick thing, when the garage delivered my bike back to me, it came in bits   with tonnes of things disconnected and in different bags e.t.c... I've put most of it back together now, which i'm proud of    but I swear that the spark plug leads were not arranged the way they are now when before the garage had it. I'm guessing that it matters which one goes where (sorry this is probably a really stupid question), is there any kind of reference that can tell me how they are arranged??

Thanks alot!!

Nigel

[PitterB4]

1st - I recommend you get your hands on a manual.  You can download one from Echo - see stickied thread in this forum.

2nd - it's not a dumb question.  It's been asked here several times.  Left coil - 1 & 4 (outside cylinders), right 2 & 3.  It doesn't matter which left one goes to 1 or 4...

[gsxr400 racer]

phuck things are getting technical around here!

[TheKillerB]

Ok guys, I hate to sound like a broken record, but is it possible that Nige could be another victim of a failing petcock (like we discussed in other threads)?  The engine dying, running poor but better at full throttle and the wet plug in #1 (far left cylinder) all sound like the conditions I experienced before mine finally crapped out.

John

[gsxr400 racer]

its possible for gas to go down the vent line if the diaphragm goes bad on the pet-cock.

[Bandit]

Even if the fuel petcock is faulty, the valve is always open letting fuel into the float bowls, but there is still the float which will regulate the fuel into the float bowl.

The float will rise when the bowl is full and the needle will then shut off fuel into the bowl just like how the toilet flushing system works.

[TheKillerB]

its possible for gas to go down the vent line if the diaphragm goes bad on the pet-cock.

It sure is, that's what happened to my bike.

[TheKillerB]

Even if the fuel petcock is faulty, the valve is always open letting fuel into the float bowls, but there is still the float which will regulate the fuel into the float bowl.

The float will rise when the bowl is full and the needle will then shut off fuel into the bowl just like how the toilet flushing system works.

The valve is not always open on our bikes, that's why we don't have an "off" switch on our petcocks.  Fuel only flows to the bowls when there is vacuum (engine running).  That's why there is a vent tube running from the pipe intake between the carb and cylinder on #1 up to the petcock.  The diaphragm that opens with vacuum sometimes tears with age so that the engine vacuum sucks fuel through that tear and straight into that intake.  Eventually all carbs stop getting fuel when the tear gets bad enough and fuel dumps straight down the vacuum tube and into the #1 cylinder.  So the tearing is a steady progression and carbs slowly lose fuel.  That's why you get the poor idle, surges and eventual completely dead and non-starting engine.