Issues on an 89 Honda Hawk

[billcosby]

I sold my first bike (89 Honda Hawk 650) to a buddy of mine. it is having some issues and i don't know where to begin with helping to solve them.

his words:

"You could give it throttle, but nothing would happen and then it would randomly get lots of power. It was also acting like it was out of gas. On the ride home, it started dying on me. The RPMs would just slowly go down until the engine stopped no matter what you did to the throttle. When I would slow down coming into a light, it would die. It was extremely sluggish when accelerating. Finally managed to get it back home and checked the throttle cables. Couple of nuts were loose, but nothing obvious there. Did a slight adjustment of the cable and tightened everything back down good.

This morning it seemed to be running a bit better, however after about 5 miles it quit on me again. Coming home it seemed as if the throttle was non-functional. The RPMs would go up when I gave it gas, and stay up when I let off the throttle. Then they would just go down all by themselves. Occasionally it would give itself gas."

any ideas on where to start? When i had the bike i totally broke down the carbs and cleaned them and the throttle cables are new. spark plugs maybe have 3k on them. i put in a new clutch (don't think this is the issue) and it has about 6k on it.

thanks in advance

[dunelly]

carb issue
take it apart and clean it and work from there

[HalfLiterBeater]

+1. I'd also check all your vacuum lines and that the carbs are bolted down tightly, especially since you've already had them off like you said.