Alright, let’s talk about this 2006 Suzuki SV650 I’ve been tinkering with. Picked it up a while back, hadn’t been run in who knows how long. You know how these things go, sitting in a garage, collecting dust.
Getting Started
First thing I did was just give it a good look over. Tires were low, chain looked dry, the usual stuff you find. The battery was obviously flat dead, wouldn’t even take a charge properly. So, step one was ordering a new battery online. While waiting for that, I decided to deal with the old fuel.
Drained the tank. Man, that gas smelled awful, real stale. Got all that gunk out. Put a couple gallons of fresh premium in there, just to start clean. The new battery arrived, popped that in. Hit the starter… crank crank crank… nothing. Okay, typical.
Digging Deeper
Next up: spark. Pulled the plugs out. Front one wasn’t too bad, rear one was pretty black. Cleaned them up best I could, checked the gap. Still, figured new plugs wouldn’t hurt, so grabbed a set of NGKs.
Put the new plugs in, tried again. Closer! It sputtered a bit, tried to catch, but still wouldn’t really fire up and run. Sounded like it was starving for fuel. That meant one thing I wasn’t exactly thrilled about: carbs.
Carb Cleaning Time
- Pulled the seat and tank off.
- Disconnected hoses and cables. Careful not to mix things up.
- Wrestled the airbox out. Always a tighter fit than you expect.
- Loosened the clamps and wiggled the carbs free. Took some effort.
- Brought them over to the workbench.
Took the float bowls off. Yep, pretty gummy in there. The pilot jets were definitely clogged solid. Took everything apart carefully, laid it out on a rag. Sprayed everything down with carb cleaner, used compressed air. For the tiny passages in the jets, I used one of those super fine wires from a wire brush. You gotta be gentle though, don’t want to enlarge the holes.
Cleaned everything until it looked good, then put the carbs back together. Getting them back onto the engine boots and getting the airbox back on? That was a fight. Lots of pushing, a bit of silicone spray on the rubber boots helped, and maybe a few choice words. Finally got it all sealed up.
The Result
Connected the tank again, turned the fuel petcock on. Waited a minute for the bowls to fill. Took a breath, hit the starter. Vroom! Fired right up! It idled a bit rough at first, needed some choke, but after warming up for a few minutes, it settled down. Let it run for a good 15-20 minutes, revved it a bit. Sounded pretty healthy.
Still need to do an oil change, check the filter, lube the chain properly, and maybe sync the carbs down the road to get it perfect. But hey, it runs! Went from a dead bike collecting dust to something I could actually ride around the block. Felt pretty good getting my hands dirty and bringing it back to life. That’s the fun part, right?
