Gloom despair and agony on me
Deep dark depression excessive misery
If it weren’t for bad luck , I’d have no luck at all
Gloom despair and agony on me!
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So, I was supposed to be doing a victory lap right now and bragging about my mechanical prowess. Instead I’m sulking in my recliner drinking a beer and wondering what went wrong.
Remember my left carburetor that had all that wear inside? Where the butterfly had literally carved a groove in the side of the body and I had to do all kinds of work arounds trying to compensate for the fact that the carburetor was sucking air in around the butterfly and causing a lean condition. This guy here.
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My bike was pretty well adjusted and running well with one nagging exception. It had this off idle stumble that made it hard to smoothly pull away from a stop.
I was able to source a used but good condition carburetor body from Gary , along with a new butterfly. I had them all cleaned up and waiting to install. Well today was the day. I broke both carbs down and thoroughly cleaned both of them. I checked every passageway to make sure there were no obstructions, then I very carefully set both floats to 24mm. I made no jetting changes. I also installed all new fuel line and new filters.
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So I installed the carbs and did the dead cylinder method on both sides to set the air screws.
Then I hooked up my manometer and balanced the carburetors.
It felt good started well, idles good. So I took off to get gas in it. The good news is, that off idle stumble is completely gone. But here comes the Gloom and Despair.
It breaks up and stumbles from 2500 rpm to 3500 rpm then smooths out and pulls hard. It’s very consistent in this behavior.
I went back home and went through everything again. Dead cylinder method to set the air screws, manometer, I even broke out the timing light and it was dead on ( Pamco ).
Took it out again and same thing. Starts well, idles well, breaks up between 2500-3500 rpm then smooths out again.
Got it back home again and was standing there looking at it, when gas started dripping under the bike. I hadn’t shut my petcocks off and the float valve was sticking open in the Right side. I shut the gas off and tapped on the bowl with a wooden handled screwdriver. Started the bike back up and it seemed to stop.
Then I thought I’d pull the plugs just to see what they look like. The left cylinder is on the left in this photo.
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The left plug was completely black and sooty.
I had pulled them about a month ago before doing this work and they looked like this.
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So , for now, I just put the plugs back in and went in the house to think about it.
So let’s recap. Here’s what I did today.
Swapped out the left side carb body.
Set the air screws
Balanced the carbs
Checked the timing
Checked the plugs
This is noteworthy: before swapping carb bodies my air mixture screw settings were this,
LEFT SIDE. 2 3/4 out
RIGHT SIDE. 1 3/4 out
Now they are
LEFT SIDE. 1 1/2 out
Right side. 1 3/4 out
So the left side definitely had a lean condition that was being compensated for by the air screw.
I made no changes in my jetting, which is.
MAINS. 127.5 Two sizes up
PILOTS. 27.5. One size up
Which brings me to the point of this whole sad story. What the HELL is wrong here? I thought this was going to run like a scalded dog after all these lovingly done repairs!
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