so, I noticed that my carb flooding problem only happens when its really cold at night. and after its been sitting and when I get off work during the dark.
I just put some sea foam into the bike and ran the hell out of my bike, im not sure if its completely fully into my bike yet, but im sure it will be within the next 50 miles.

How long do I have to wait before I give my bike another Seafoam shot??? I feel like it will need more than one dosage.
Is it harmful to the bike if done alot????

You arent twistin the gas during start are ya?

I have a 1996 LS650 with a spedo reading of 14,341
-new engine and tranny with 1,200 miles

Ok my startinh procedure during the morning or day, is normal.
-turn on the bike, hold and click the starter for 2 seconds and we the bike starts no problem. (not giving any gas). The bike warms up fine and idles fine.

IN THE COLD, usually later on in the night 9PM^ , i walk to my bike after fully cooling down this is my procedure
-turn on bike, hit the starter and ths bike turn on normally, but then the bike will have a slow idle for 1 mins or so and the  it will die off.
I the  try to turn it on, giving it a fraction of gas and it turns on, butthis time will last for 10 seconds if I dont kesp the gas down, and EVEN then the bike will refuse to stay on. (maybe the carb is so gummy its not so functional unless it warms up).

For example last night around 1AM when I was on route to go home, my bike would start up, no gas needed to give, it would idle fine. But as I let it warm up for a bit, id take thebike a a few feet down the road slowlh and it would start slowly dying off unless I gave it a good throttle turning. [during this throttle giving part, this is when gas starts to leak out of o e of the carb vents and it can get up to a barf of gas at time, and it also drips out of the bottom breather tube, i belive that goes to the air box?]
The bike eventually stays on fine upon a nice good warm up, but im sitting above a few small puddles of gas.
-no  choke, the bike has trouble starting w any choke applied
-the bike sat for a whole year untill recently (march)

And get this brown, I live in Southern California, now that is not even cold compared to many other places at night ahaha
But yet, my bike still hates the cold, as does its owner. . .
(grew up in the phillippines, used to the hot humid jungle weather of 110' daily)
Ahaha




Har there maty!!  I'se done tolt ye before it were his petcork !!    I wins again !!!    

Now there Cap't Verslaggy -- have that here land lubber unscrew his oil cap and sniff his oil in his sump fer the scent of gasoline all proper like.

not a sea foam problem
either something has come loose in your carb
or it was put together incorrectly.
suggest you remove it and inspect.

Please do remember to sniff your vac hose, your air box and your oil sump -- knowing how far your petcock deteriorated is important to your knowing what else it may have done to your bike.

Pirate talk aside, when you were struggling to get gas while you were booking on down the road your engine was running quite lean and your piston was hotter than normal (bowl level was very low and both pilot and main jets were not getting the vertical fluid pressure they were built to have).

I am theorizing that perhaps the "sudden onset of oil use" is attributable to a vac petcock starvation episode that is repeated over time doing mild damage to the piston (pinching the ring grooves with mild galling due to over expansion due to gas starvation over heating).   Once the rings get restricted, you start using oil.  Overheating the ring's steel doesn't do good things for their tension either.

In some extreme cases, we have had a few folks suddenly drop valves and we have had people suddenly totally gall up piston/cylinders and we have had two folks wind up with a hole in their piston (one also dropped a valve so which came first -- the chicken or the egg?).   These are admittedly somewhat rare events and  may be on the extreme end of a spectrum of "petcock trouble".

On the milder end of trouble is "sudden onset of oil consumption" which is rather more commonplace and it would be nice to have a clearly known cause that could be fixed in advance (some preventive actions taken) to keep it from occurring.

So, sniff away and tell us how far your petcock actually got away with you ....  the data will be useful.

< this is when gas starts to leak out of o e of the carb vents and it can get up to a barf of gas at time, and it also drips out of the bottom breather tube, i belive that goes to the air box?]
The bike eventually stays on fine upon a nice good warm up, but im sitting above a few small puddles of gas. >

Actually, all you need to check is sniff your oil in the sump, you have already admitted to spraying gas over everything else .....


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Serobot, if he's so far advanced as to be blowing and puddling gas is your petcock test still going to work correctly, right?  His reserve pathway offers no means of dumping any more gas down the tube because it is blocked with the golf tee.  

A stuck float (stuck open) could also do the same sorts of gas dumping things ....  tell you what -- do you have a large plastic handled screw driver handy?

Floats only tend to get stuck when they get run to the end of their travel, in your case the petcock starves things until the float bowl just about goes empty and the float itself sticks in the full down (open) position.  Once stuck, the only thing that can free it is a sharp rap on the side of the bowl to jar the float free so it can rise with the incoming gasoline.

So you grab that big screw driver by the blade and use the big plastic handle like a hammer and you sharply rap on the float bowl 2-3 times after you do the petcock test that is shown at the top of Serobots test thread.  There is gas in the bowl again to float the float, so once it is jarred free the float should rise and stop the inflow of gasoline.

Good news is once the petcock stops starving things (or gets replaced with a Raptor if you so choose) the float never sticks again as it is always in the narrow center floating range that it normally operates in.

Raptor Petcock part # 5LP-24500-01-00. About $20. Plus vacuum nipple block off for carb...about anything to plug the hole.