new guy. i think i screwed up

[Chopped7]

Hi guys. i'm Jim in Phoenix, AZ. i've been riding motorcycles a good part of my life with a little 10 yr break through my 20's to get married and have kids and such. i started riding at 6 yrs old on a honda 50, then a Yamaha 100 enduro, Hodaka 100 Super Rat, my buddy in middle school had a Suzuki 185 i rode a lot, in high school i had a Hodaka 125 Combat Wombat, then a Yamaha 400 Special the summer after i graduated. i moved from Washington state to PHX in '03 and it didn't take long to want to start riding again with this weather. i found a 650 Suzuki Savage on CL for a good price and picked it up to see if commuting on a bike was for me. Well, it was and i started drinking the Harley Kool Aid for the last 10+ years. My last Harley started falling apart recently at 70k plus miles and i didn't think it was worth fixing everything. A guy at work wanted it so i gave him a good deal.

i wanted to go without a bike for a while. that was my plan anyway. It didn't work. I convinced my wife i would just get a cheap old bike to ride to work, save money on gas, have extra transportation, etc. The bike I found happened to be a 1973 TX 650. It's kind of a project but it's mostly complete and the seller said it ran, there is just a problem with the clutch. That's what lead me here. A lot of my Google searches came to this forum so I registered. i have never had a bike like this so I'm sure I will have a bunch of questions for you guys as i get into getting this bike on the road.

I started it today for the first time. there were no fuel lines from the tank so i finally got around to plumbing that. To my surprise, it fired right up. To my dismay, it smokes like big bro truck rolling coal but it's blue. i was really hoping to just clean this thing up and bolt on some stuff to make it look nicer, and ride it. Oh well. you win some you lose some. I'm looking forward to being part of this community.

 

[madjap]

Welcome! This is a great site and if you use the SEARCH boxes on topics a lot of your upcoming dilemma's can be answered thru other people having the same issue / trouble. this is THE BEST site I've joined and LOTS and LOTS of knowledge and xs expertise. PICS!

 

[Chopped7]

 

[angus67]

Wow. Your description sounded better than it looks, but you have to start some were,eh?
Too bad the tanks all fucked up. Prettiest year in my opinion. Sounds like your rings are toast. But i just started a extre 650 motor, and thought they were later carbs, needing more idle screw than what they needed. Smoked like cazy 1 and1/2 out. Figured out what excactly what year the carbs were, and at 3/4 out, purrs like a LION!!!!

 

[fredintoon]

Hi Jim and welcome,
so where did you screw up? Seems to me you are off to a good start.
So, it that a racer's knee dent in the gas tank or is it collision damage?
Got a photo showing the gas tank's other side?

 

[gggGary]

compression and leak down tests. The good news is these are kind of tinkertoy engines.
That's not a bad effort at knee dents, who ever did it.

 

[madjap]

Heck, looks like a good start, I don't think you're skruud... If that IS a purposeful dent in that tank, it looks pretty dang COOL I think! At any rate...every issue you come across can be wrung out on this site. You got some work ahead of you BUT, "if you ain't learnin', you're dyin'". Or drunk. Or smart as hell. Anyway... THANKS for the pic!

 

[Chopped7]

The knee dents are the same on both sides. They are a little bumpy but that's fine. I'll post some more pics in the daylight. I got the bike for a really good deal. $500 plus a dirt bike I got for free that I never got running. I'm just bummed about the smoke. I don't really like the seat but my plan was to buy an aftermarket tail section from the start. I'll probably just rebuild the whole top end. I just wasn't expecting to have to. The guy I got it from told me it ran great and the only issue was the clutch. Oh well. I'll get it figured out.

 

[fredintoon]

Hi Jim,
WTF, oil's cheap, eh? Besides, if the bike hasn't run for a while you may luck out and the blue smoke problem may fix itself with a few miles of riding.
BTW, what does the clutch do that it shouldn't, or not do that it should?

 

[Chopped7]

I can't pull the clutch lever in to disengage it. I'm going to look at the clutch pack and go from there. Hopefully it's something simple.

 

[Chopped7]

More pics or the tank

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[Brassneck]

Nice price for what looks like a decent bike. Do you have air filters for it? As mentioned, the blue smoke may be from sitting. Or like I did on a bike I had back in the day...I accidentally used a 2 stroke mix of gas/oil in my 4 stroke gas tank...man did that freak me out...until I realized my mistake.

Good luck and welcome to the group!!!

 

[Brassneck]

Ah, I see the air filters in your new pics.

 

[fredintoon]

I can't pull the clutch lever in to disengage it. I'm going to look at the clutch pack and go from there. Hopefully it's something simple.

Hi Jim,
I'd start from t'other end, it could be as simple as a stuck clutch cable.
Pull the leftside cover casting and check out that the multi-start screw & cable arm works properly and that the cable moves nice.
You gotta do that anyway so you may as well do it first, eh?

 

[Chopped7]

Thanks for the tip. I can use all the help I can get. I took the air filters off to plumb the fuel lines and didn't get them back on yet. I'm hoping the smoke might be from sitting but with my luck it's probably the rings. I'm hoping to get time to look into the clutch after work.

 

[XSLeo]

Quite often the excess oil come from valve seals. I might try replacing them before I tore done a good running engine.
There is a thread around somewhere on doing this.
By the way, Welcome to the best little web site anywhere.
Leo