Posted by Allison Taylor on August 03, 1999 at 01:10:23:
This is the second time this has happened since I had the bike serviced a few weeks ago. The bike ran fine in the morning. When I started it late in the day it ran really rough and was blowing black exhaust, some of which seems to be coming from around the heat shield near the footpeg. The last time (last week) it coughed and stalled all the way home and then died altogether. The mechanics told me the spark plug was fouled because the fuel mixture was too rich. (They had serviced it a few days before.) They leaned out the mixture and replaced the plug. The same thing just happened again. I've ridden less than 20 miles since this plug was replaced. Now it won't start at all. I locked it up and up and am about to walk home. Their thought now is that I may be leaving the choke on too long and the plug is fouled again. It has been my experience that if I take the choke off too soon, the idle speed is so low that the bike stalls, although I realize that not much choke should be required in this heat. I will look back at some of the older forum stuff, but does this sound like a problem familiar to any of you? I guess I'll start carrying an extra spark plug.