I have a ‘02 Triumph Bonneville America that has been sitting for a while. After I replace the fuel with fresh gas, I‘m thinking about adding either a small amount of Marvel Mystery Oil or STP carborator treatment to help clean out the pilot jets. Is this a bad idea? Is there a better way to go about this without tearing my carborators apart?
Replace the gas with a good quality fuel that has cleaning additives in it, such as Mobil or Chevron with techron. See how the bike runs first before you decide to do anything. I'd check the plug first to see how it looks before you run the new fuel through, and then again after you run it to see the difference. You can tell a lot about air/fuel mixture by the residue (or lack thereof) on the plug. The off the shelf Carb Cleaners aren't really that effective when used as an additive. They are mostly made up of strong solvents - which can cause other issues on an older bike such as dissolving sediment that has built up in the tank, damaging seals, etc. If the carb is truly gummed up with varnish that forms from fuel sitting for extended periods, then the only way to get it clean is to disassemble the carb, clean it and re-assemble. Good luck. :)
Most gas additives won't do anything. High test gasoline with a touch of acetone works, sometimes. Boiling the carbs works, sometimes. Disassembly and thorough cleaning work the best.
it sure can and you get a dtc of p0455 evaporative emission (evap) system leak detected p0456 evap system leak detected ( very small leak) p0457 evap system leak detected ( fuel cap loose/off)
I did a little research on STP and Marvel Mystery Oil and discovered Oronite,as well as some other things. Most of the gas additives start with kerosene (STP calls it jet fuel) then add things like naphtha, benzene and xylene. Then there is stuff called Oronite. It is a trademarked name for Chevron's proprietary compound used in their bulk gasoline with Techron. Anyway, I looked at a couple of different MSDS sheets for different brands of fuel additives and only STP and bulk Chevron gas contain proprietary compounds along with along with several chlorinated hydrocarbons. Which would I use if I were you, STP Complete Fuel System Cleaner.
