Hello all,
This is my first post on these forums.
I purchased my 82' for $100, the previous owner was not as patient as I am in dealing with these seemingly complicated carbs. When I purchased the bike, I knew it was going to be a project bike with carb issues. The body is in decent shape, and all other mechanicals seem to be in decent working order, and seemed like a decent barn bike find.
I immediately got a charge on the battery and was able to get it to fire up with a lot of choke, and throttle. That was good enough for me at the time, and parked it for a period in time where I could devote some time to it. About a year passes.
Fast track to this past week. My buddy bets me $100 that this bike will never be reliable enough to take a 90 mile trip to Louisville and back. Bold bet, but I'm confident. And lights a fire in my ass to work on a bike thats been sitting in my garage for almost a year.
I knew the tank had a "bit of" rust in it. This was seemingly the demise of the bike, and had to be the first issue resolved. Had the tank acid flushed and redlined by a local shop. Next, fuel petcock rebuild kit. Complete teardown of the carb, being extremely careful with the gaskets. Looking at all the blocked, corroded, jets, I have no idea how this thing started at all. The rust in the tank was the sole culprit, and blocked every passage and venturi pressent in each of the carbs. I proceeded with soaking everything in diesel in my ultra sonic cleaner, and removed, and blew out every passage I could see with carb cleaner. I used an entire can of carb cleaner on this carb, and am going to purchase another.
I bench synced the carbs, because at full close, one of them must have been adjusted to accommodate the clogged jets, and had about 2 mm opened. Reassembled. I Cant read the jets due to corrosion, so I have no idea if the previous owner even placed the correct jets between the mains and air jets. Set the Idle mixture screws to 3 turns from soft bottom on front and rear.
The bike fires up! I am so happy at this point I take a video to scare my buddy, and let him know he's about to owe me $100 bucks.
...then the problems. She's getting more and more difficult to start. I have a brand new battery, and starter selenoid. At full choke, she turns and turns. And more time sitting pissing my neigbors off, she eventually sputters, i apply some throttle, and by some random sequence of throttle input, choke adjustment, rain dance, i'm able to get her to idle. I set idle to a little over 1000 rpm, but she's bumpy. When I rev her up, she screams to 3000 rpm and holds there till I can't take it, and spin the idle screw down, and she settles back down and dies. I tried to sync her, and thought i accomplished a sync. But the rev issue did not go away.
I will admit, i did not check the float level. I'm not too sure how to do this, and cant find pictures. From what i've read, this is a must along with every single little detail with this carb.
Also, should i bother with the oversized jets that i just purchased from Sigma 6 jet kit? Anyone ever use this? It came with very vague and generic instructions. From what i've read, it sounds like stock jets are fine. If so, where can I source some?
Anyways, any help is appreciated. I have big plans for this bike....and a bet to win.
Thanks!