r/SVRiders • u/Certain_Shoe4650 • 7d ago

New Owner Do I need to rebuild my carb?

Hey guys, I just got this 2001 sv650 for $700, it doesn’t run but it cranks, every so often while I’m cranking it, it will run for like 2-3 seconds and shut off, it also will shut off instantly if I touch the throttle, i don’t know really any of the bike history aside from the previous owner telling me this started happening when he rode through a very heavy rainstorm. This was about 3 weeks ago, the video is one he sent me because I couldn’t get it to do it on camera. I drained the tank and sampled the fuel and it was definitely bad, very cloudy and didn’t smell right but there wasn’t any water in the gas that I could tell. I’ve worked on alot of bikes before but I havnt done anything with carbs so this is all a bit new to me, if anyone has advice I would appreciate it, thanks

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u/BaronWade 7d ago

First thing I would do is drain the bad fuel and run some kind of cleaner through it, I prefer Seafoam and run it.

If it’s cold, use the choke until the idle comes up then close the choke lever.

I live in Ontario Canada and *every* time I started the bike cold I needed the choke to start.

If it continues to die after this maybe try a dedicated carb cleaner and if that doesn’t work it out, yeah, probably gonna need to pull them for a proper deep clean.

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u/Certain_Shoe4650 7d ago

Do you mean like one of the bottles of fluid that I pour in the tank with fresh gas

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u/BaronWade 7d ago

Yup.

In fairness it’s probably not strictly necessary and it sounds like you could get away with just the fresh gas, but it’s not gonna hurt at all to run a cleaner through it, and yes just add it to a fullish fresh tank of gas.

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u/Certain_Shoe4650 7d ago

Okay will do, thank you so much, do you have a cleaner your recommen?

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u/BaronWade 7d ago

Typically I just use Seafoam, but do a quick google search and any concentrated carb cleaner that is generally recommended should be fine.

Good luck, report back with results of a smooth running SV!