bluegnu

Thanks for all your feedback guys! I'm hoping it it's not a lost cause, the guy I bought it from said he'd just put it back together after sitting in a garage for 6+ months. I'll give this a go over the weekend: Clean carb thoroughly Change pump seals Gearbox oil (450ml) Coolant to top of fins New iridium spark Check timing (if poss without tools) If the rad hose is burnt through, does anyone know if I can modify 08-09 kits to fit 2004? Such as the SFS silicone set on ebay. I'm guessing the exhaust should not be touching the hose or cylinder.

Also the exhaust has burnt the radiator hose and scorched the cylinder head!

In the meantime, I'd drained the coolant as I thought it was overheating (there was more than i'd expected to see), but when I drained the oil it was a milky emulsion: So have ordered pump seals and see if that helps. It did seem to be running very hot, fan was intermittent but was coming on and then I got some knocking after a while.

Thanks Heffergm - I'll try that again and update. I'd blasted it pretty well when i took it off, but perhaps I'd pushed something in there. It hadn't got an airfilter when I got it!

HiI'm sure these are familiar problems with older bikes... Recently found an old 2004 Sherco 250 to give a go, it's tatty but mechanically looked serviceable. I've ridden it a couple of times, just getting a feel for it for an hour or so and to begin with it sounded good, deep and throaty and idled nicely. It has however been very temperamental to start, the original kickstart lever snapped to begin with and I'd put the difficulty starting down to a cold, flooded engine. But after a day of unsuccessful kicking with a new lever, lots of backfiring and sever flooding, I thought something must be wrong... I took the carb (Dellorto) off and it looked clean and in good condition, but looking in reed cage I could see that one reed had split and dropped across the cage. So, I replaced the reeds and imagined this would cure the problems starting and improve the performance. Spent another half day of frustrated kicking, adjusting the carb idle/mix and could not get it to run for more than a few seconds. No matter what I did with the mix screw, it would 'bog down' with anything more than a fraction of throttle and not turn over without the choke or 1/8 of accelerator. Finally the kickstart spring bust, so now I'm waiting for the replacement to arrive. From what I can tell, the first place to check is the carb jets aren't blocked, the spark plug is new (cleaned it a couple of times after flooding), compression feels good, tiny side movement in piston from feeling through exhaust, new airfilter. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. It's great to read so much support here. Happy riding! Sam