haluk

False alarm. Problem persists.

All good so far. Fired up with no problems this morning after a frosty night and runs like a dream. I treated it to a bottle of Redex to celebrate.

He cleaned the carbs, reset the float heights and lowered the idle speed to 1000 rpm. It was in the garage for a week and he said it started fine every time after the work. That might have done it. I will see how I get on in the next few days.

Update: Can’t completely get to the bottom of it. He said it started fine first time but wouldn’t the second. Opened up; carbs were a little flooded spark plugs were black apparently. He’s keeping it there until Monday morning to give it another go. Also burnt one litre of oil apparently having only done a few hundred miles since last oil change. Will hopefully find out more on Monday.

I had my VFR for over 11 years. Nothing would have separated us, had it not been for the uncomfortable sitting position after developing arthritis. Great bikes.

Normal people learn from their mistakes. Clever people learn from the mistakes of others. On this occasion you learn from mine: I bought a 20-year old, reasonably priced bike with one owner from new (normally a good sign) but not a shred of paperwork re history. Of course it turned out to be a heap of shite. If you’re offered bikes with no paperwork, walk away.

not sure but just checked for my W reg TDM I‘d have to pay £12.50 each time. So that‘s a no for me.

Not to mention you're liable to get cramps in your clutch hand with the constant stopping and going. I reckon scooters are unbeatable in London.

One cable was corroded once and left me stranded in the middle of Croydon waiting for AA. So it's quite posisble. It was one of the cables leading to the ignition from the relay, which I have no means of accessing because you have to remove the tank with the TDM. I am one of those bikers that do not have a garage unfortunately. Anyway it's been in the repair garage since yesterday morning but my mechanic hasn't been able to lok at it yet. He is snowed under with work, unusual for this time of the year I must say.

Trust me I’ve tried all that. Tried again yesterday with full choke, it got going coughing and spluttering, cutting out three times along the way so I had to rev it. It took 20 minutes for the coughing to stop, it warmed up, the normal idle speed returned and all was fine. But of course I can’t be doing this every time I need to get somewhere. So I’ve booked it in for Monday morning with my mechanic, who asked me on the phone if the bike was kept outside overnight. I’m assuming he was thinking whether it was a damp problem? I’ll leave it outside his garage Sunday night so he has a cold engine in the morning. I’ll report how I got on after.

This is not something I can do as I don’t have a garage but can certainly ask my mechanic to look into. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks lads. And yes I am fairly new around here, sorry for forgetting introductions. Having read your comments I can say that I have tried a few things so far: Half choke, full choke, before or straight after starting, hasn’t made a difference. it doesn’t happen every time but every second or third time. Bike’s had a major service back in September by the way. When it starts normally (on a good day) I shut the choke after about two minutes and all is well. Idle rev counter speed is around 1.3 - 1.4 when warm. When it decides not to play ball however, it feels as if opening the choke has caused the carbs to flood or something. It coughs, splutters, as if running only on one cylinder. When I rev it, it doesn’t respond immediately but suddenly jumps up 3/4 k rpm. When it happened the first time I thought it might go away if I just ride it and it nearly caused me to do an unwanted wheelie. When it’s idle for about 15-20 minutes, it then goes away. I mentioned it to my mechanic and he said to try different variations of cold start until I get used to it, pretty much like what Bianco2564 said. If this is the case then I suppose I will have to work a little bit harder than on my VFR, which never had any problems of this kind.

Is anyone familiar with this? After 11 years VFR 750 I got a TDM 850, which behaves differently when it comes to cold starts. In warm weather it doesn’t require choke at all, that is, it won’t even start with the choke on. However, in cold weather it tends to cough and splutter with very erratic revs with the choke start and takes about 15 minutes to calm down. Is this a problem with the bike or am I doing something wrong?