I'm new to the site but it looks great. just wondering if any of you had this problem. I have a 2000 ds650 and love it. I bought it used and on my second ride it started to sputter, you could rev the throttle and it just won't catch up to itself and started backfiring, but would idle fine. towed it home and took apart the whole fuel system, cleaned the carb and tank and seemed to run better. Next ride out it worked good for about an hour and it sputtered again, it now seemed electrical. pulled on the wiring for the healight switch and it went away and i rode it for a couple more hours. then it acted up again and would quit if you turned the headlights off. I then took the light switch apart and found nothing. Its very intermite, but it is starting to drive my nuts. your help would be appreciated. thanks.

 

Wouldn't hurt to make sure you don't have a bad battery.

 

Sorry. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

Welcome to the forums. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

welcome to the forums I would suggest draining all of the old gas and cleaning the carb again as the tank prob has junk in it from sitting...and also check to make sure you have a strong battery like suggested

 

if you haven't already, check the valve adjustment. valve gap diminishes over time, to the point that the valve no longer shuts all the way, resulting in loss of compression and sputter/backfiring. if the valves have not been adjusted before, its guaranteed that the intakes are out of spec. sinc ethe bike is new to you, this needs checked even if it isn't the problem.

also a bad battery can cause this as mentioned, the DS needs battery juice to run the field coil for the stator to produce juice, it cannot run with a dead or bad battery

make sure the fuel tank breather tube is not kinked, this is quite common and has bit hundreds of people. next time you have the problem, remove the gas cap and see if it goes away, if it does then the problem is the breather tube

check integrity of the ground wire conection on the frame - where the main ground from the battery connects. insure its clean and tight.

check all that, and get back to us on what you find

welcome to the forums!