I took a short road trip the weekend before last and woke up from my hotel to find my bike was soaked. I thought to myself, no problem, I'll dry it off and it will be ok which it was until I got about twenty miles down the road. At that point it started dying and finally wouldn't start anymore. At this point I figured it had water in the gas and checked the fuel line. When I unplugged the line at the filter, I noticed it had pressure on it and sure enough, there was some trash in the filter as well as water. I filled the filter up, blew it out, and repeated this a few times. Replaced filter and it ran like crap but it ran so I decided to go on. The longer I went, the worse it got and by the time I reached town, (fifteen mi or so) it was really popping and sputtering and lacked the normal power. With over a hundred miles to go, I stopped at the parts store, bought a fuel filter and a bottle of STP gas treatment and poured the whole bottle in the tank. It ran a little better but by the time I reached the other side of town, It was popping and even backfired a couple of times. I decided I better call my brother to come get me.

This morning I decided to see if I could get it running right. I noticed that a little oil had blown out of the dip stick tube and gotten on the pipe which alarmed me but I figured that probably happened when it backfired a couple of times. Anyway, I removed the tank, poured all the gas out into a five gallon bucket. Checked the filter to find one very small drop of water in the filter which was otherwise clean. I rinsed it out and reoplaced it. Removed the air filter and blew it out. I then loosened what I think is the drain screw at the bottem of the carb. It has an allen head which I thought to be odd but I'm pretty sure it was the bowl drain. While I had the tank off, I removed the spark plugs and cleaned them as their practically brand new. The two front plugs looked ok and the back plugs were black. One of the rear plugs was wet. (I started it up before I removed tank to see if it would start)

Anyway, after all that, I started it up to take a test run down the highway. It runs better but still like crap. It doesn't sound nearly as deep as if did and lacks it's normal power. It seemed like it tried a couple of times to go ahead and take off but after about a mile one direction and then back, it never did. I'm beginning to wonder if I have more problems than water in the gas.

I'm not sure what to look at next and am wondering if anybody has any ideas.

Razor
Do you have an after market ignition system on the bike??

You had oil blow out of the dipstick screw on cap? Maybe you have moisture in the electrics. You could take your tank off and point a fan at the bike. Might help

NO, I have the origional. Am a little suspicious about the electrical though because the rear two plugs were black while the front two were ok, or at least not black. Checked rear plug for fire before I replaced them and saw spark but it wasn't blue like I would hope.

Yes, it came out of the dip stick tube. I may be missing an o-ring. Didn't think to check. I will try placing a fan on the electronics but it's going to rain tonight and tomarrow so I probably should hold off until the humidity is lower.

I think you have gotten water in where your electronics are. I have not experianced this with my R* but have had it happen with my old shovelhead harley. Like Musky said you need to get everything dried out.

Do you guys think it would do any good to remove the tank and place a fan on it with it raining outside. It's currently under my carport. It's been two weeks since it was in the rain but maybe it's still wet, huh?

Try new plug first and see what happens. You could test your coils. Maybe one of them is weak or got damaged by the moisture.

I'll try some new plugs tomorrow. I only checked one of the rear plugs and the spark was orange and appeared to be weak even after cleaning the spark plugs. I wondered about the coil also. Those burned back plugs seem a little strange since it was only the rear plugs. Seems like they would have all been that way which is what led me to think of the coil. I probably should check all the fuses too but it seems like if it were a fuse it wouldn't even start.

Do you have a compressor? Try to get a better stream of air around all the electronics. You might have moisture trapped in between areas allowing conductivity and arcing especially with humidity to boot. Don't forget the connectors too. Take them apart, blow em out and carefully put some dielectric grease in there. Don't be sloppy with the grease because you may cause more problems.