Project... "Fast & Flow"

Took the bike for another ride last night, again 10-12mins, all under 3000rpm (except one acceleration from a stop sign, woops). With the headlight on low beam the entire time the voltage went up to 14.7v but never higher than that.

Also, pulled a spark plug after the ride and it's a little white looking so it seems I still need to move up a main jet size and a pilot jet size.
 
Thanks Carbon, Hugh is apparently sending me a replacement rec/reg, hope that brings it down a bit.

Thanks Explorer!
 
Lots of small stuff done on the bike last night. Changed the oil, shortened the clutch cable, lubed the chain, re-jetted the carbs. Now all that's left is to ride, too bad it has snowed about 8" in the past two days.
 
Last edited:
fox23 said:
- - - Now all that's left is to ride, too bad it has snowed about 8" in the past two days.
Click to expand...

Hi fox,
you too, eh?
It was so nice last Wednesday here in Saskatoon that my son renewed his XS650's insurance, charged up it's battery, took his bike out of my shed, fired it up and rode it home.
This inspired me to clean my bike's carbs so it ran on both cylinders once more.
And now it's snowing heavily here, too.
Betcha if I'd gone through with my plan to renew my bike's insurance I'd have summoned a full blizzard.
 
Well most of the snow that showed up has melted so I was able to go for a decent ride yesterday. It was great, bike seemed to be running well and I was having a blast. Still a little cold to be out for an hour and a half or so, but I enjoyed being able to really ride it at last!

Now the bad news, about 3/4 the way through the ride I start noticing this odd metallic rattle. Only seems to be present from 1300rpm and up, and louder on deceleration/engine braking that on acceleration but this could just be because the exhaust noise is overpowering it on acceleration. When I got home I immediately thought cam chain tension, pulled the nut and adjustment looked ok. I idled the bike and tightened it up a little more but it didn't make any difference. I didn't have time for any further investigation but I'm going to say that the next steps are to check the valve gaps and maybe drain the oil to check for debris (cam chain guide)?
 
I don't know if it would cause any damage maybe ask PETE but years ago when we swapped out Suzuki Alternators for outboard Kaw Alternators on GS motors to take the weight off crank we use some capacitors to cut down the output on one of the wires.
Worked but don't have much experience on the PMA. All the ones I installed worked and bike left shop and to my knowledge still working. Just like you are adding lights on to draw down there has to be a add on to do the same. Maybe something to look at the difference of these PMA's.
 
While investigating the mysterious rattle I pulled the side oil filter to find a pretty good amount of shavings. Is this normal to see on a freshly rebuilt engine? Right now its got about 2.6hrs on it.

67A858EB-D02F-4BC5-80F9-93FE07266233_zps5ihepfee.jpg
 
Mine had metal, but not that much. Where is the rattle? Top or bottom end? Did you get all the pins in the crank bearings? I'm thinking a crank bearing is spinning.

Pull your sump filter also. See what it looks like.
 
To me the rattle is coming from the top end. It also wasn't always present, developed after about 2hrs of run time was already on the engine. I'm pretty confident that all the locating pins are in the bearings properly. If I recall correctly I'm pretty sure you can't even close the cases if they aren't lined up properly
 
That's a lot of metal, I'm sure there's more on the magnets downstairs.
A clatter that changes between acceleration/deceleration usually means rod bearings...
 
I took an engine apart once that didn't have a pin in one bearing. It was ugly. Hopefully you figure it out quick and it's not expensive. Like Toomany says, check down below. Magnets full of metal, problems. No metal there, you are probably OK.
 
Did you ever check the sump for more shavings? That still seems a bit concerning to me for so little hours...
 
TwoManyXS1Bs said:
Haha, great! That's gotta be one of the easiest/cheapest "engine rattle" fixes I've seen on here.
Click to expand...

Yes, I was quite happy as well.

wannabridin said:
Did you ever check the sump for more shavings? That still seems a bit concerning to me for so little hours...
Click to expand...

I didn't check the sump, will do that on my next oil change in another hour or two on the engine. I cleaned out the side filter last night and it had a lot less shavings in it that the picture makes it look. I think it's because the filter screen is silver it makes it look worse than it is.
 
Not really any progress, but I've been enjoying the summer with this beaty. It's coming to a close so just trying to get those last few rides in!

EE54C60D-80CD-48B0-BC2B-82E144F01D7A_zpsaj5qlpje.jpg
 
Very cool looking machine, incredible workmanship! Being somewhat in my neighborhood I hope to see this in person someday.

In regards to the metal shavings, I couldn't help but wonder if you glass bead blasted your engine cases? The problem with glass beads is they break into terribly small pieces and can embed into the soft aluminum making it impossible to scrub/wash away. We had a student glass bead his car engine during rebuild and it only lasted a couple thousand miles before it wiped out all the bearings.
 

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