Ok, I have some updates.
Here is a brief rundown of the issues I’m having and what I’ve done so far:
I’ve replaced the spark plugs, wires, and caps. I drained the old (and very yellow) gas and replaced it with ethanol free, cleaned out the rusty tank, cleaned the petcocks. Compression is about 158 on both cylinders.
Cleaned out float bowl, replaced jets to factory settings, put factory air boxes on with what appear to be k&n style pleated filters, and put in a new battery.
Checked cam chain tension, cleaned and adjusted points, set timing.
I will be checking/adjusting the valves tonight and looking into how to adjust check/adjust the floats.
When I get on the highway, I always die about a mile or two down the road (a minute or two). It starts up fine after (kick only, electric start cranks but won’t start the bike) but will die within a couple miles at highway speed. I drove around a rural neighborhood averaging 35-45 mph for about 30 minutes and at about the 25 minute mark had to slow fast for some deer and it died but restarted after downshifting and releasing the clutch. It then Died again once more after that after stopping, but kicked on fine. Up to that point it ran perfect.
I think some of the dying while stopping issues may be coming from the clutch cable or something related. It is very tight and when on the center stand it will shift through the gears fine or idle in 1st but sometimes it wants die when it’s on the ground and the clutch pulled. I don’t think it’s fully engaging and going too slow for whatever gear is killing it. I also can be next to impossible to shift into neutral without reaching down and pulling it up after it has been ridden a while.
On the highway I think the problem may be related to the vent hole/seal. The seal is about shot (anyone got a line on a good replacement? I guess the repros are junk) and the vent hole was caked closed and after about 30 minutes of messing with it I got a lot of that old rotted filter out. I haven’t ridden it since but air now passes through it so we’ll see. I read about using scotch bright as a filter but don’t really know how that is supposed to work.
That’s about it for now, I do think the carbs probably need synchronized.
Feel free to share your opinions or advice.
Here are some pictures of new plugs I put in with approximately 30 miles on them:
Left:
I also noticed the left side exhaust pops a little bit, the right sounds smoother.
Right: