Hello,

I am new to this forum, and figured i'd ask my question.

I bought my first motorcycle this week. I found a nice deal on a 85 honda shadow vt500c and have been riding it for a few days. I am finding it has a lot of hesitation when i give it some throttle. Like a good few seconds of hesitation between giving it gas and it going. It sits at about the same rpm, maybe even dips a little, and then after a moment it gets the gas and goes fine. Also worth mentioning is that the previous owner hadn't ran it for the last two years. Im hoping its just some water in the gas and once the old gas is out of the carbs it will respond better. I figured i'd ask here if this sounds like i need the carbs cleaned or not? The previous owner claims he had it maintained two seasons ago, and had only put 50 miles on it over those two seasons. I'm all for doing w/e i need to get it to run better, my room mate says i should get the carbs cleaned and "blown out" or something. The bike starts up fine, warms up quickly, i can take the choke off a few mins after starting it up. Any consideration is appreciated, thanks.

mac

 

Clean it, may be some gunk built up. Despite how little he drove it, oil does degrade. Try that, replace the spark plugs if they are worn and check the wires. I've had a bad battery cable give me some weird symptoms... last place I checked... (not saying the last one was relevant.. just a weird thing that happened one morning riding home. Best part was I was just saying how I could use an extra day of vacation. lol )