Well this certainly looks familiar.....
It’s been a couple of years since I had the carbs off and tuned everything up. When I first brought this bike back to running condition, I really struggled with the carburetors. Air leaks everywhere, and my left carb body had significant internal wear that was making it hard to adjust and set the idle and balance. I eventually replaced the left side body with a good used one from the Prince of Baraboo.
I posted this video on the 4th of July, two years ago.
So now I’m in the process of breaking down the carbs for a thorough cleaning. No problems to run down this time, just clean and tune.
Hey, remember when we were talking about the crankcase vents on my XS2, and I restricted the outlets on mine to reduce oil vapor. I epoxied a couple small machine nuts in there. Then later 5Twins was telling me about how the factory later on put these rubber stoppers with holes in them to reduce the size of the opening. I never even realized, I have those on this bike. Look how close I came to matching the one on my XS2 ( on the left )
I’m also going to be replacing all that old clear line with Tygon. These clear lines get hard and stiff from being heated. This morning I was just trying to move one of the lines aside ( while I still had the carbs on the bike ) and look what happened. There’s no flexibility in these lines at all, that could’ve been disastrous on the road. I want to get rid of all those clunky clamps also.
I didn’t take any photos, but I also removed the old grips and got everything cleaned up. I also cleaned and lubed the throttle tube and cable.
This bike has really gotten scrungy from the last two years of riding. It’s amazing how much oil vapor and dust and grit collect everywhere. I’m going to clean all that back up and when I get my carbs back on, I’ll go through The Whole tune up ritual and balance the carbs with my manometer.
The hard part for me is trying to keep a handle on not letting this job spiral out of control. I’ve already restored it once ( or maybe refreshed would be more accurate). The little voice in the back of my head keeps saying things like, “ That would be much easier to clean if you took it off, and while it’s off would be a good time to rebuild it, and of course if you rebuild it, you’ll have to either paint or polish it.”
And that my friends is a very slippery slope, I’ve already been down a couple of times. I have to try and keep in mind the original objective.
CLEAN
TUNE
COSMETIC MAKEOVER
Man, the first time I worked on this bike for
My 60th Birthday thread, I always closed out with a photo of me holding a beer. Damn! Sometimes I miss that, a cold one at the end of a job. Not a drop in a year and a half.
But I’m feeling
much better now......
Later,
Bob