My friend and I are going to the dunes (oregon) next weekend and out of the blue his 1985 Kawasaki Tecate three wheeler will not stay running! He chokes it, kicks it over and it will start and idle for 15-20 seconds and then die, it won't start again until we pull the plug out and kick it over to check for spark, when we put the plug back it will finally start after a few kicks but run for a short time, when he tries to rev the throttle it responds about two or three times and then dies like he is not even pushing the throttle. We put a new fuel filter in, took off the carb and sprayed it out good with carb cleaner, and made sure the carb hoses are clear. I have heard of ignition problems with these bikes but it will start but not stay running. should we take the carb completely apart and inspect it closer? Could it be flooding out? I have no clue!!

Thanks for any help on this, we can't miss our dune trip!

 

sounds like one of the jets are plugged pull the carb apart and clean it all out THOROUGHLY. wuz the air filter clean? if no then clean it. how did the plug look when you pulled it out?

 

I recently bought a beautiful '86 with the same problem. After a couple of weeks of scrathcing my head I brought it to a bike shop. They pulled the cylinder off (the crankcase was loaded with fuel) and then it actually ran but would lose spark at W.O.T. They cleaned all the connections on the entire bike and now it runs great, good enough to crush stock Bashees and usually squeak by piped and carbed ones.