Miss November XS2 tribute

[5twins]

Set the cam chain adjuster so it's flush with the pin when it moves out, not in. Yes, new chains are pretty tight but initially stretch out some quite quickly. You'll want to check, and probably need to re-set, the cam chain tension shortly after you get it running, in say 50 to 100 miles.

A properly done fresh rebuild, if everything's set right, usually starts right up, pretty much immediately. If all your other settings check out (valves, carbs), you may want to re-visit the timing. After all, that initial static timing you did is just a "ball park" setting. You might try moving it a little to the left and/or right of where it is now. That may get the timing closer and make it easier to start.

I'm pretty sure your Boyer uses a single coil with 2 plug wires. If so, that fires both those plug wires at the same time. There's no way to wire it up 180° out.

 

[member28833]

I'd charge that battery and if that doesn't do it, just kick it till you can't anymore and see how it goes.....

Strongly second that using the kick starter if your knee is up to it.
I’m quite sure that kicking after setting to tdc by hand puts a better, faster spin on your engine. Creating better flow through the carbs for a quick start !
The starters can tend to just crank it slowly and lumpy in my opinion just more likely to creat an atmosphere in the intake tract and combustion chamber of improper mix. Wet and rich.
I consider my starter as emergency backup or perhaps if it’s all going well ,
A lazy cheat

 

[5twins]

Yes, the batteries on these aren't very big and don't have a lot of reserve power. Sustained cranking with the starter runs them down quick. And sometimes once the battery gets lower, even though it's still cranking, there's not enough power left over to work the ignition, so it won't start.

I do use my electric starter pretty much all the time in the warm weather, but I kick it in cold weather, at least for the 1st start of the day. After that, if the oil is still warm and thin, I will electric start it.

 

[member28833]

Ya, and don’t half kick it like your scaring off the neighbors chicken,
Always kick it full swing , like you mean it !

 

[Raymond]

Eeeyyyeahhh....Yamaha didn't exactly cover themselves with glory in designing the XS650 electric starter system did they?

The fact is that it DOES work quite well, if everything is right with the engine, but with a new re-build, tight everything and perhaps a slightly weak battery, you're not likely to get it to start. If the timing was out 180 deg.

I would expect that you would get a massive backfire somewhere.

I'd charge that battery and if that doesn't do it, just kick it till you can't anymore and see how it goes.....

It may be that we will have to have a chat about starter gear #4 sometime soon.....Pete

Pete, am using a brand new battery, MotoBatt 14.5 AH, fully charged before I fitted it. But it seems to flag after a wee while.

I don't like to 'churn' an engine on the starter, so each press is maybe a couple of seconds.

With the tight engine, I don't seem to get much purchase with the kicker. But my friend Elliot is coming over tomorrow - going to ask him to bring his spare car battery, which holds a lot more juice, also a compression tester and a strobe. This last a bit optimistic.

Yes, I think I pointed out that the area under the fuel tank and behind the carbs is VERY crowded on these bikes making inclusion of a fuel filter quite a task. Here are a couple of tips:

• try one of the small filters shown below (available most places);
• feed the LH carb from the RH petcock and vice versa (makes the fuel hoses a little bit longer);
• you can get a 90 deg. elbow fitting which can be screwed into the petcock instead of the usual straight fitting and that may provide some flexibility in the installation (I have a couple of those fitting and am going to try that next on my XS750 cafe tank set-up);
• some folks have come out of the petcocks with a longer segment of hose then put a filter in-line partially behind the sidecover and then another long segment down to the carb inlet.

Pete, am running without inline filters - my reasoning being that the tank is brand new with no rust or other detritus. The fuel taps supplied with the tank came with various brass hardware including 90° elbow, so I fitted these pointing aft. When I couldn't get the fuel pipes over the tops of the carbs and anywhere near the taps, the two options I thought about were as you suggest, fit pipe across to opposite tap or swap the taps and have the elbow forward. But in the end, I have routed the pipes behind the carb bodies and round to the taps. This looks awkward as the pipes sit out ahead of the side-panels but will do for now . . .

 

[Raymond]

5t, Machine, thank you for your well-intended encouragement. I will practice kick-start technique and see if I can get a decent swing. At least the bike is low, which helps for getting some weight over it.

But my right knee would not fetch much on the s/h market - been in too many accidents. Ironically, one reason I sold my Triumph TR6 650 is because it was kick-start only. I loved that bike - when it was running, it was just right, right size, just enough power, good handling, lovely sound track, on a summer's day on a quiet country road with the birds in the hedges and a song in the heart it was the perfect motorbike. A true gentleman's machine in the classic manner. But then there were the days when it had wet-sumped or had some other niggle . . . and no alternative to working that right knee.

 

[Raymond]

Set the cam chain adjuster so it's flush with the pin when it moves out, not in. Yes, new chains are pretty tight but initially stretch out some quite quickly. You'll want to check, and probably need to re-set, the cam chain tension shortly after you get it running, in say 50 to 100 miles.

A properly done fresh rebuild, if everything's set right, usually starts right up, pretty much immediately. If all your other settings check out (valves, carbs), you may want to re-visit the timing. After all, that initial static timing you did is just a "ball park" setting. You might try moving it a little to the left and/or right of where it is now. That may get the timing closer and make it easier to start.

I'm pretty sure your Boyer uses a single coil with 2 plug wires. If so, that fires both those plug wires at the same time. There's no way to wire it up 180° out.

Thank you, 5t, that's what I thought with the Boyer that there's no way it could be 180° out. Yes, it's a single coil with two HT leads - so presumably a 'redundant spark' set up?

Last night with battery on charge, I checked the Boyer again and all is as their set-up guide. Today, will take a look at cam position and tensioner as well.

Not too sure what to check with the carbs. I gave them a thorough clean and some new parts - gaskets and float valves - but I guess PO might have messed around with the needles and mains or whatever to get the bike to run in the state it was in before.

 

[Raymond]

Your cam looks 1 tooth advanced.
Optical illusion?

2M - we crossed in the post. I spent some time looking at cam and notch as as far as I could judge it was at the top. Tried one tooth either way, and this seemed best. Rocker box cover has been nailed on now . . .

Hmm. Not too sure now - you've certainly got sharp eyes, 5t. With the bike not starting have been checking things. The static spark timing looks good. But here's a picture I took today of the camshaft, with engine at TDC or PDC:





So far as I can judge, drawing lines on the photo and using a plastic protractor, the valve timing looks advanced by about 5°.

If there are 36 teeth on the cam sprocket, then one tooth out would be 10°.

I don't know how much of a difference half-a-tooth will make. How worried should I be? Enough to pull the engine apart again?

 

[Paul Sutton]

I assume you are seeing a good spark?? This weather in the UK full choke will not let you start, try as little as possible. With Boyer you can try moving the paint spot either way to the edge of the view hole. I would try anti-clockwise first so the paint spot is just going out of view at top side of the hole.

My cam chain looked slightly out like yours, but as you said, when tried one tooth either side things just looked worse. I also tried one tooth each way and concluded like you.

Check your fuel level height for the carbs just in case one is flooding.

If you can leave an electric fan heater blowing on the cylinders for a while you may get the bike started easier - do not leave the heater unsupervised just in case the heat damages any paint work.

On my first startup after a rebore I get the engine running and as soon as I cannot keep my hand on the cylinder cooling fins I switch off and let it cool off. I do this 3 times before riding. The engine will get very hot very quickly.

Excess oil in the head and ring area of the cylinders from the rebuild will take a while to burn off so your plugs will look black for a while. On my bike at 22 miles not all the oil had gone but by 80miles the plugs were running clean again. I have just seen the same on my Virago.

Edit: The Boyer needs good voltage. If electric starting a tight engine puts the voltage below 11V then the ignition may not work. Certainly at 10V the Boyers is not working well at all.

 

[5twins]

Your cam position is probably as good as you could make it. Remember, a new tight chain will do some initial stretching very quickly and the tensioner pushing on the back run of the chain will roll the cam backwards a little. That will put that pin hole closer to vertical.

 

[MaxPete]

Agreed - when I started Lucille up last summer after a top-end job, she was tight and hot () for a little while but things got better fairly shortly (say within 20-80 miles or so).

After that, I changed the oil and cleaned the filters/strainers to ensure that any swarf was well and truly gone. Now, around 2500 miles later, she's running cool and clean (well...clean, for Lucille that is.).

Pete

 

[5twins]

Did she start easy and quickly Pete? All the ones I've done have. But, most were pretty good running to begin with, before their rebuilds. There's no telling what state of tune this one had to be set in to make it run before with that too long chain and the cam timing being off.

 

[MaxPete]

Did she start easy and quickly Pete? All the ones I've done have. But, most were pretty good running to begin with, before their rebuilds. There's no telling what state of tune this one had to be set in to make it run before with that too long chain and the cam timing being off.

It wasnt too bad 5T - a bit of kicking was involved as I recall - but a pal handled that task because by last August, my right knee had begun its final slide toward unserviceability which result in a total replacement in Jan/2019.

Once she was running - the electric did the job easily however.

Pete

 

[Raymond]

Thank you all for your continuing interest in my old motorbike!

Today has been good - with help from Elliot, we have found the problem. Or in fact two problems.

There may of course be further problems but what we have found today must be sufficient to stop her starting.

We tried his car battery to give additional oomph - nothing doing.

So Elliot began very methodically checking and eliminating. What he found was the r/h plug was duff PLUS the r/h HT lead was duff. Or it could be that the Boyer Bransden coil has an internal fault. Of course, I found nothing when I checked the spark, because I only checked the l/h plug.

Either way, the road ahead is clear. New plugs and new coil & leads.

Let you know how that goes. Must go now - need to take Elliot plus his Good Lady - and of course my Wlling Assistant - out for a nice meal.

 

[MaxPete]

Thank you all for your continuing interest in my old motorbike!

Today has been good - with help from Elliot, we have found the problem. Or in fact two problems.

There may of course be further problems but what we have found today must be sufficient to stop her starting.

We tried his car battery to give additional oomph - nothing doing.

So Elliot began very methodically checking and eliminating. What he found was the r/h plug was duff PLUS the r/h HT lead was duff. Or it could be that the Boyer Bransden coil has an internal fault. Of course, I found nothing when I checked the spark, because I only checked the l/h plug.

Either way, the road ahead is clear. New plugs and new coil & leads.

Let you know how that goes. Must go now - need to take Elliot plus his Good Lady - and of course my Wlling Assistant - out for a nice meal.

You are a class act Raymond!

Dammit - I'm comin' over!

Pete

 

[Raymond]

Thank you, Pete!

Biblical rain today, didn't dampen the spirits though, back in the garage with Elliot and the job we did today was compression test. L/h cylinder approx 124 lb/sq" and r/h approx 118 lb/sq". Elliot thinks that is pretty good? Certainly dispels my doubts about the rebuild.

Been to our village motorcycle engineer to pick up 2 NGK BP7ES. Been to ebay and ordered Boyer dual-output ignition coil and leads.

The coil should be here in a few days and perhaps at last . . .

 

[MaxPete]

L/h cylinder approx 124 lb/sq" and r/h approx 118 lb/sq". Elliot thinks that is pretty good? Certainly dispels my doubts about the rebuild.

That sounds OK - and the two are within 10%. I would anticipate a substantial increase once the rings and valves etc. are bedded in and everything is ticky-boo. I must admit that I have not taken a compression measurement on my '76 since the rebuild last summer but as I recall, around 145-155 lb is a good number for a fully sorted engine.

Best of luck with the new parts Raymond!

Pete

 

[Raymond]

I don't think I did the compression test procedure correctly - while Elliot held the meter, I pressed the starter. But I forgot you are meant to open the throttle, so it was fully shut. Don't know how much difference this will make?

 

[MaxPete]

I don't think I did the compression test procedure correctly - while Elliot held the meter, I pressed the starter. But I forgot you are meant to open the throttle, so it was fully shut. Don't know how much difference this will make?

Could make a fair bit of difference - but there isn't much you can do about it right now. I'd get it running and see how it goes.

 

[5twins]

Also, you often get better readings when testing a warm motor instead of a cold one. But yes, not opening the throttle can make a big difference. The readings you got are probably pretty good for a closed throttle, cold engine test.