Yesterday, a good friend's husband was kind enough to help me work on my bike. See my previous post for the full symptom list, but I'll describe what we did here:
Cleaned/oiled (K&N) air filter
Checked the main fuel filter (in the tank)
Changed the inline fuel filter
Cleaned the carbs
Removed them, dis-assembled them, cleaned with carb cleaner
Re-assembled everything.
The bike started better and seemed to be running a bit better.
Fast-forward to this morning.
The bike DID NOT want to start. It took me a good 1-2 minutes of cranking to get it to start, even with full choke.
Then it finally started, and took a while to warm up.
Now here's a carb question:
On the top of the carb body (looking at it from above the bike) between the carbs there is a black T fitting that fits between the carbs. Actually there are 2 of them, one on the TOP of the carb body and one on the bottom (where the main fuel line attaches to the carbs). The top T fitting... is something supposed to connect there? We could not find any disconnected hoses or anything, so that fitting is 'naked' right now, no lines or hoses connected to it. I have a funny feeling that's not right, and I don't have my Haynes manual to check.
Any ideas?
Any ideas on why the damn bike doesn't want to start, knowing the carbs, air filter, and fuel filter have been checked?
We also adjusted the throttle and choke cables when we re-attached them to the carb body, FYI, and both choke and throttle action are OK.
Thx.
:cheers:
That hose is for atmospheric pressure to the float bowls. It is just supposed to go somewhere with relatively calm air.
The starting issues sound like a mixture problem. Did you check the enrichner operation, the passages and o-rings? It isn't actually a "choke". How are the plugs? What size of pilots jets do you have, and how many turns out are you on the idle mixture screws?
Sounds like it may be lean. Bigger pilots, and/or adjusting the idle mixture may help. The enrichiner circuits may be blocked, or the o-rings leaking. Or the plugs are all rounded, and not working very well.
Actually from looking at the valves it's rich. Bike ran fine before, and we cleaned the carbs, but did not adjust anything, so I'm back to why is it running worse now that I've cleaned the carbs/air filter/fuel filter? Only thing I can think is new plugs.. I've got Champion plugs in there now, with around 7k on them .. maybe I should get better plugs?
What you mean Looking at the valves...you cant see them...atleast not very well...
Cool.
Srinath.
Could not see them real well, but with the carbs off the bike and the airbox off the bike I could see some 'gunk' on the carbs, looking in thru the intake manifold into the engine. Looks like it's running rich.
Seems to run better when the main fuel petcock is on 'prime' rather than 'on' .. make any sense to anyone?
It's always difficult to diagnose things without being there. Maybe you cleared a passage with your cleaning, or drove something in one good and tight. Maybe you cleaned the junk out of a hardened o-ring,and now it leaks, or tore the diaphram.
You aren't going to be able to tell if it is running rich or lean looking at the top of the intake valve after running at all sorts of throttle openings and choke settings. You need to do a plug check with clean plugs.
Champion spark plugs aren't that great in bikes usually. I'd get some NGK's of the right heat range to start with.