Gordon in nc
XS650 Junkie
First off I want to say I really appreciate all the help....and I mean that...ALL the help and suggestions. Some of you really went out of your way to help...I'll not forget that.
Right now.....I feel like crawling away and never coming back. Or maybe changing my screen name and pretending Gordon in NC left town for good.
I found the problem...or at least I know what the problem is but not what caused it.
Keep in mind this bike sat unused for many years. I would never start a BSA unit single that's been down for that long without going inside and looking around.....but I know those like the back of my hand and the XS is new to me. So I thought, what the heck...let me see if it would run and go from there....what did I have to lose? The bike started the first time I tried the starter....and all I did was prime the cylinders. It NEVER smoked a bit and ran pretty well.....sounded great. I put a little over 50 miles on it. I had just strobed timed it again and it was running fine when I turned it off. The next day I decided to pull and lube the advance rod......and did....and the bike hasn't run since.
I had always thought that the compression (yep, the key word here) was weak....but heck it ran and ran what I thought was well so again....what the heck. I haven't used my compression gauge in 15 years or more. If you know BSA unit singles.....one push on the kicker and you know if it has good compression or not. But the past couple of days I have been wondering just what compression this bike has....I was saying it was the same as it was when it was running.....but since I never checked it....I really didn't know. It took a while for me to find my gauge....but I wanted to check the compression tonight before I started working on the bike to find out what it would be before I re-torqued the head. At first I thought my gauge was bad....it really hasn't been used much at all. So I try one of my other bikes.......the gauge is fine.
I have very little compression.....not knowing the XS isn't a good enough excuse. I want to apologize for the misinformation and for wasting your time. It never had "good" compression but it ran.....
I'm going into it and find out what's causing it.....I'll need some more help and I'll try to do better the next go around.
Tail between his legs in NC......and not feeling very proud of himself right now.....Gordon
Right now.....I feel like crawling away and never coming back. Or maybe changing my screen name and pretending Gordon in NC left town for good.
I found the problem...or at least I know what the problem is but not what caused it.
Keep in mind this bike sat unused for many years. I would never start a BSA unit single that's been down for that long without going inside and looking around.....but I know those like the back of my hand and the XS is new to me. So I thought, what the heck...let me see if it would run and go from there....what did I have to lose? The bike started the first time I tried the starter....and all I did was prime the cylinders. It NEVER smoked a bit and ran pretty well.....sounded great. I put a little over 50 miles on it. I had just strobed timed it again and it was running fine when I turned it off. The next day I decided to pull and lube the advance rod......and did....and the bike hasn't run since.
I had always thought that the compression (yep, the key word here) was weak....but heck it ran and ran what I thought was well so again....what the heck. I haven't used my compression gauge in 15 years or more. If you know BSA unit singles.....one push on the kicker and you know if it has good compression or not. But the past couple of days I have been wondering just what compression this bike has....I was saying it was the same as it was when it was running.....but since I never checked it....I really didn't know. It took a while for me to find my gauge....but I wanted to check the compression tonight before I started working on the bike to find out what it would be before I re-torqued the head. At first I thought my gauge was bad....it really hasn't been used much at all. So I try one of my other bikes.......the gauge is fine.
I have very little compression.....not knowing the XS isn't a good enough excuse. I want to apologize for the misinformation and for wasting your time. It never had "good" compression but it ran.....
I'm going into it and find out what's causing it.....I'll need some more help and I'll try to do better the next go around.
Tail between his legs in NC......and not feeling very proud of himself right now.....Gordon