mr72's '92 project - "Renegade"

[cbrfxr67]

I went with older carbs on mine too,...
Got sick of messing with the laterz,....
Been going strong since,...
At least it's rolling!

[mr72]

It's a steady throttle thing. If I hold the throttle at, say, 20%, and it's also between about 5K and 6K RPM, it feels like the slides are stuck down. Just kind of bogs. If I open the throttle to like 25%, or if it gets out of the 5-6K RPM range, it runs just fine. If you happen to get it in the "stumble" condition of throttle and rpm, then just crank it to WOT, then it kind of hesitates just a fraction of a second as it comes out of this boggy range and lights up like a racehorse with a hornet up its backside. If you do this in first gear, it'll lift the front tire when it comes on.

This condition is like holding a constant 20-30 mph in whatever gear you are in where that's 5500 rpm. You rarely wind up doing that. Usually you just upshift and avoid this issue if you have to go 20-30 mph steadily. That's why I say it happens mostly when you are accelerating but get slowed from traffic, so you don't want to upshift and then have to shift back down to continue. And if you are really accelerating, you will downshift to get above 6K. If you are going over about 40 mph then it takes more throttle to cruise at 5500 rpm so this issue goes away.

The part of the pilot jets that are getting clogged is the little microscopic hole at the top (rounded end), which I assume is around 0.4mm diameter. A 0.010" guitar string was used to unblock it, and a 40 pilot jet should be just under 0.016". I can't imagine how bad it'd be if it were half that.

[SK Racing]

This might explain why you've been having so many carb issues lately. If I understand correctly, ethanol fuel is more suited to fuel injection.

The kicker starts around 6:30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRNfyz1Cgvg

[mr72]

I didn't watch that, but I only run ethanol free fuel in my carbureted stuff, especially this motorcycle.

I think the reason I have so many issues is because it's old and I rarely ride it. I rode it the other day and the carbs were fine eventually and then the rear brake went nuts and locked itself, smoke coming from the caliper. If it's not one thing, it's another.

[iamhiding]

Was noseying through the manual the other day and was reading that certain regions are fine on 10% ethanol, surprising considering how much 5% eats fuel lines/seals. But yeah its always something isnt it.

Just a thought, its worth giving your ignition components a quick once over for what little time it takes as it could be a myriad of things, i once had and ht lead sitting loose on the coil giving me what sounds like similar symptoms but sometimes it was great and others it would consistently bog and burst into life. Didnt feel like an ignition issue.

[mr72]

The tags, and inspection, ran out in March. This bike is 30 freaking years old. Why do I still have to get an inspection? I could get "Classic" plates for it and only have to renew the registration like every two years and not have to do inspections at all, but they require you to not ride it except in parades or to shows, etc.

Anyway, point is, I had to drag the old girl out to get it inspected. Last year when I had to do this, it wouldn't run and I had to pull the carbs and clean the pilot jets, then it fell over on the side stand and broke a bunch of stuff, and I didn't ride it much, until I did and the rear brake went bonkers overheating the fluid and seized while riding, etc. etc.

Well, this time I was too busy and had too much going on to get out and get it inspected in time to renew the tags before they expired. It was last Thursday before I had a chance to address it. I figured I was in for the whole rigamarole: no start, pull carbs & clean, fiddle with it, eventually make it run well enough to get to the inspection shop, get it inspected and then park it for another year.

Nope!

I even hooked up the battery tender thinking the battery was probably dead, but it was all green lights. I put the choke on, turned on my manual petcock, and gave it a shot. It fired right up. Ran kind of bad for a minute, and clearly the choke is not working right, but once the carbs got all full on gas it sorted out and ran like it did last time I rode it, which is to say, still has that 5-6K stumble that keeps you on your toes a little bit, still is pretty high strung with the 14t front sprocket, still weeping fork seals, but otherwise great.

First place I went to to get it inspected, closest to home, had some dude in a truck that the oil change guy wanted to have a really long and deep conversation with through his side window while I sat there for like literally 10 minutes idling in the 95F heat waiting to ask if they could do an inspection. When he finally got to me, he told me the inspection guy was out. Welp, I guess the bike was fully warmed up by then.

So I took off for the place I usually go, which is the other direction from my house, and ended up using like 5+ miles of suburban highways (that is, mix of stop/start and 65+mph). I thought for sure the bike would decide to leave me stranded in that distance. Nope! It rocked it all the way. I had to wait 45 minutes for the inspection, which it passed because they didn't even look at a single thing including mileage, just left it parked in the parking lot and typed in data from the insurance card. Then it rocked it running home and made me want to take the long way, but I had to get back to work and it was really hot.

I am finally planning a day-long ride I've been wanting to do for about three years now, main reason I did the ADV-type conversion to my GS500, which is to see the Regency Bridge, "the last suspension bridge in Texas that is still open to traffic". There is between 2 and 10 miles of gravel county roads leading to this bridge, but it's got 120+ miles of country highways with 75mph speed limits between my house and the bridge. Various things kept me from going during either the spring or fall over the past few years, not the least of which is that the bridge was damaged and closed for repair for like a year. But this year my bike runs, my dad has a bike capable of making the trip, and my wife is out of town on a weekend when we can go. Sure, it's likely to be 95F by the time we get home, but we're heading out next Saturday with a small group ride to do this most-of-the-day trip. Leaving earlyish in the morning with hopes of it not being 95F the whole time.

With any luck the GS will make the trip with limited drama. I do think I'll dump some more Seafoam in the tank before heading out. And finding ethanol-free fuel to refuel in San Saba or Goldthwaite might be tricky, but you know, this is ranch country, maybe there are enough ranchers who have a whole barn full of 50 year old carburetor vehicles to keep demand high for ethanol free fuel out there. In any case, I am sure I can run one tank of E10 coming back. It'll be empty when I get home.

Just like every time once or twice a year I ride this bike, I predict this might be the last ride of old Renegade. But I always wind up changing my mind and keeping it.

[The Buddha]

I went to the newer carbs for a while, then back to the older model carbs trying to diagnose a problem that got worse and worse since I got the bike running again ~2018. Finally last year - I found out the petcock had a leak at the vacuum diaphragm and was putting fuel into the left cyl. Problem wasn't the carbs at all.
But I know you're running the on/off style one in this, or is that a different person I'm assigning to you.
Cool.
Buddha.

[mr72]

Yeah, I had a myriad other issues and switched to a manual petcock. I think mine was leaking fuel into the vacuum port.

The choke looks to be working, mechanically anyway. You pull the lever, it opens the valve. I haven't torn it down to see what's actually wrong with it. It's doing something, since it will actually start while it's cold. But it doesn't rev to 5K rpm and do the normal stuff.

Since the needle-washer thing can be done with the carbs on the bike, I think I'm going to try adding a washer this week before taking the bike on the long trip this weekend. I think I can even do this job without removing the tank in its entirety.

[mr72]

Went out today and put another washer under the needle e-clip. It is now up to 3. These are #4 brass washers. I think 3 washers is probably just over one e-clip position if you had multi-position needles.

Also checked the mechanical operation of the choke, which seems to be working as expected. But it's not working to start the bike. Maybe the problem is using the manual petcock, the float bowls are not full enough on cold start.

have oddball mods, so this is basically useless information. Things that affect jetting and needle position: chopped down Yoshimura muffler, header wrap, Uni drop-in air filter. I am running 40/125 jets and now three washers.

Test ride today confirmed that the third washer indeed fixed it. Well, let's say it moved the problem almost completely out of the way. Now there is the occasional hesitation when going from engine-braking deceleration to acceleration. But it's not all the time, and it is pretty easy to live with. Still, I think a fourth washer might eliminate that too. So next time I have the tank (mostly) off, I may add another washer.

Side note: it is surprisingly tricky to put the needle back into the slide with three washers.

There are still a litany of issues with this bike. The choke doesn't really work much. It doesn't do the fast-warmup thing when on choke. I think something inside the carb is clogged. Odd that it seems to affect both carbs. But I can confirm the plunger is functioning correctly. The new fork seals weep, one badly enough that I had to install a sort of sponge on it to keep it from leaking onto the brake caliper while parked. But no matter. It runs great, the manual petcock fixed 90% of what was wrong with it, it didn't go south over the winter, and it's ready to ride.

[mr72]

We did the ride yesterday.

251 miles round trip, mostly back roads, some in the midst of the once-a-century CenTX county road maintenance schedule [means they're rough... see... it's a joke...].

The old GS did great. I didn't find ethanol-free fuel to refill, so I ran 1.5 tanks full of E10 and the bike ran and worked fine.

Problems with the GS? Well... whatever hint of hesitation or stumbling that was left over after putting the final washer in has gone completely. It just runs almost 100% how you want it to. It still has some kind of issue I can't really work out, below about 6K rpm when you crank it open under load it just feels like it's not doing everything it could be. There's just some fine tuning left in the carbs, and I probably don't have patience for it. Maybe another washer would fix it.

I also noticed a bit of oil weeping somewhere, enough that after this 6 hours of riding when I parked it one dime sized drop of oil dripped onto the garage floor and I could see some oil on the left side of the engine. I think it's probably the cam cover gasket. And one of the carbs is leaking fuel somewhere, just a little, but when you run it a long time you do notice the starter cover is wet.

And riding on the rough roads and especially the 5ish miles of washboard gravel I did notice I need a bit more damping of the rear shock. I've never adjusted that Kat600 shock since I put it in, so I guess another click or two is warranted.

But hey, she did 250+ miles in a row without any issues at all. No reason I wouldn't take it for another all day ride if the need came up.

[The Buddha]

The soft power delivery when opening the throttle is likely to be rich. But 6k rpm isn't actually useful to diagnose it. At what throttle position ? 6K is 1/4 throttle in 1st and likely 1/2 throttle in 5th.
Also leaking out the carb ? Could your fuel level be too high ?
Cool.
Buddha.

[mr72]

Certainly doesn't seem rich, since the problems have gotten better with washers under the needle.

It's like 5th or 6th gear and probably over 50% throttle at 4k or 5k when it does this. Accelerating at like 50 mph without downshifting. I think it basically feels like it starts to accelerate and then the power drops a little. I think that's why it feels like there should be more. Initial power is good, but in like half a second it backs off.

[The Buddha]

That sounds like your slide may be rising too fast. But why you running 50mph in 5th and 6th.
Cool.
Buddha.

[mr72]

14t sprocket.

50mph in 6th gear is turning about 4500 rpm.

[mr72]

I did exactly what I wasn't supposed to do: I let the bike sit with mostly untreated E10 gas in it for three months without starting it.

Then, Saturday morning, on a day we had a miraculous forecast of a high of a degree below 100F, my dad texted me to go on a ride exploring some of the myriad CenTX county roads. I hadn't ridden any motorcycle since Father's Day, so the battery was dead on both, and I decided I might as well see if the GS would work. I mean, it needed to run that old gas out. So I topped up the tank with another 2 gal of treated, ethanol-free gas, and tried to fire it up. At first, the starter barely turned and I was convinced it wasn't going to run. But then I tried again, and even with very slow starter, it fired up. I held the throttle open a little to let it "warm up" without stalling since the choke is still not really working right and I figured it didn't have enough battery for a third go-round. Then after about 30 seconds on the side stand, I took off and the bike ran like a top for the entire ~80 mile or so ride.

Really glad I took the GS instead of the Triumph. Here in Central Texas we have a number of types of roads that are good for motorcycles. We have US Highways, which are 2-4 lane roads with a speed limit as high as 70 in some places, that interconnect the larger of Texas towns and small cities that are not served by an interstate highway. These are the minimum standard motorcycle roads. They are often necessary, but frequently run straight through the middle of small and mid-size cities, and are typically not very curvy and carry a lot of light-truck traffic, you know Texas ranchers in quad-cab dually type trucks, often with horse or equipment trailers, making full use of the 70mph speed limit. Then we have the state "Ranch Road" and "Farm Road" type roads, which are typically well maintained 2-4 lane rural highways with speed limits up to 60 mph. These are the gold standard motorcycle roads around here, frequently winding through the hill country and across the big-sky ranches, running you right into the heart of smaller towns and taking you to the main places in TX where you want to go on a motorcycle.

And then we have the thousands of county roads, which have a state mandated maximum 45mph speed limit, and can be up to 4 lane decently-maintained roads when they constitute a main thoroughfare within a small town. Most often are up to 2 lanes and are of course maintained by the counties, which vary from one to the next. These county roads can be anything from a graded gravel road, often times that runs miles and miles even with the occasional gate, river crossing, and numerous cattle grates, to more typical 1.x lane wide extremely aged asphalt with frequent ripples, patches, open potholes, large patches of gravel, etc. These roads are the ones you take when you want to discover something new. And these were the roads my dad wanted to see on Saturday. He rode his Bonneville, which is identical to mine, except for stock suspension/seat/handlebars, a different aftermarket exhaust, and 80/20 tires not unlike my GS's Shinkos. These country roads are 99% of the reason I made the GS into the Renegade it is. And it loves these roads. It soaks up the half century old asphalt gorgeously. It has the light weight and great maneuverability to make its way around obstacles easily. It is happy making a low water crossing on an actual limestone river bed, and is geared low enough to climb like a goat out of just about anything. And with the 180-degree twin, it has that gap between pulses not unlike a single, which allows the tire to hook up kind of like a thumper but with real top end power so those US highway stretches we have to take to get to the bumpy and fun stuff is easy. Plus, when I am staring down a gravel path into a river crossing, I don't hesitate like I would on a pretty, shiny Triumph, because if the GS goes down, well it's used to it, and it is not expensive to fix. Plus it is 100 lb lighter than my Triumph if I have to pick it back up.

Anyway, it was a good ride, and the GS proved again that it's the right bike for it. Recently the "right" Ducati Scrambler came up on FB marketplace, and I seriously considered buying it, which would have necessitated selling the GS. I have no doubt the Duc would be just as good as the GS at everything the GS is good at, and a lot better at a lot of things. But it wouldn't be nearly as good at laying down without a $2000 bill at the end, and I'd have to sell the GS to make room for it in the garage. I'm glad I didn't submit to temptation. As long as it will run when I need it to, this old GS is kind of a goldilocks bike for TX county roads.

[Bluesmudge]

You are not allowed to sell the GS. It is a rule. Stop considering it.

[mr72]

No kidding.

Today I needed to go get the Triumph inspected, and I needed a haircut, so I decided to combine errands. I made it about 2 miles from my house through neighborhood roads when the clutch cable broke as I came to a stop light. Of course, I stalled the bike, with no way to get it rolling again in gear, so I Fred-Flintstone'd it over to a place where I could park it, then my wife and I went back to get it later.

We rode my Vespa 2-up over to where the Triumph was stuck, and tied a rope to tow it home. mrs72 did an awesome job as the tug-scooter driver. Not an easy job, I bet.

So now the GS is in First Place . Until I can get a cable here from Thailand by way of England by way of California.

[cbrfxr67]

I'm with Blue

See gs back to winning again!

[mr72]

Yesterday I picked up a free set of GS500 wheels, these are powdercoated silver unlike my gray epoxy paint over 90s white wheels. They have a good front rotor but the rear brake rotor and sprocket carrier are missing. Bearings and cush drive are all there.

If I get bored and have spare time I'll probably swap the tires over to the "new" wheels, and might even consider putting some way more knobby tires on the spare wheel set. Maybe Shinko 244s or 700s. I think a 4.60-17 would fit up front with a 5.10-17 in the rear. Might not clear the front fender...

Because what I need more for a bike I almost never ride is a whole spare set of wheels with tires I am even less likely to ever need. Obv.

Meanwhile, glorious TX riding season is here!! Maybe I'll get lucky and find some spare time tucked away in the garage somewhere and get to go ride.

[SK Racing]

A Kenda Big Block 130/80 17 knobby tire fits in the front fork with a few mm to spare. Just so you know - not suggesting you go for Kenda.