What a day...What a day..(part 1 of 2)

[Blake]

So,


It's a nice saturday morning.  Just got the vision running, put in the new alternator and starter seals.  And the day before just got plates put on it (orderd custom plates "82Visn").  I meet up with my dad at the local VFW where we're meeting with a few other people.  At around 11 or so, they take off, but we had to run home for a few seconds to pick something up, so we were going to meet up with them at the first scheduled stop.  Not more than a mile from home, i notice the bike seems to be running a bit weird and making a unusual noise.  As for the running part, it's somewhat jerky.  More "responsive" than usual to very slight throttly changes.  Its like it WANTS to go, but somethings holding it back.  Hmm.. must just be me from not having ridden it in almost a year.  As for the noise, every once in a while (not minutes..but seconds..).  i hear what i WANT to describe as a pinging, but it isnt.  its more like what you hear when a strong puff of air is blown through a small opening.  Being as i forgot to put on new exhaust gaskets when i put it back together the day before, i thought maybe that was it.  then a horrible thought passed into my mine.. what if its valve ping?  hmm..cant be..i NEVER had that problem before, and i didnt even touch the valves when the engine was apart.  thats not it.

Anyway, to me the bike was running fine.  started up good, ran good except for the slight jerking, and since the noise seemed to be from the exhaust, i kept going.  however..a little further down the road...now a good 5 miles or so..i remembered a situation i had while chem-dipping the carbs.  in the haynes manual. it says the jet that is ontop of the carb near the opening, is a main jet.  As also it says the other "main jet" is that is in the side of the float bowl.  now the one in the float bowl was clogged at the time but the chemdip got rid of that.  However, when putting the carbs back together, i rememberd, that those two jets are the exact same size. and because the numbers on them are pretty much destroyed from them being stripped, i put them in where i thought they came out.  but that couldnt be it.  the bike was running pretty good.

Well,  about an hour later, were out in booney-ville...western part of northern virginia.  were near the first meting place (unknown to me at the time) and were going over this one hill-my dad in front of me, a group of cars a good 200 yards back.  When all of a sudden.  The vision starts sputtering, and dies over the course of a good 10 seconds. dies..sputters..comes back..dies...sputters..dies..  im going about 60mph at the time, and im worrying, because here the vision is dead, im out in the middle of no where, with no cell phone, my dad is slowly pulling away and doesnt seem to notice me flashing my highbeams at him (mind you i have a 100/130 watt bulb..very hard to miss), and the cars behind me are slowly gaining.  oh wait..there it is..  the bike starts!!  finallly.. i give it some gas, BABYING it entirely..i get over the hill..and heres a small town.. "Oh great" i think...i slowly catch up to my dad, and then.  of course..just as we enter the city, going down a hill.. the bike dies.. sputters and dies..doesnt come back..  once again i flash my lights at him, he doesnt notice and drives off around a turn.  i pull over infront of someones house and try to start it again and again.  Nope.. nothing.. argh...  cars go by..  a guy on a (might i add VERY nice) 2002 ducati 996 stops and asks if i need help, but i tell him im good, knowing that sooner or later my dad will come back around and he drives off..  just as the friendly biker goes off.. THE BIKE STARTS!!!  yes... finally..i put it in gear and start driving off..but thats as far as i get..  bike dies.. and wont start again.. by now its a good 2 minutes later and here comes the father, riding back.  after a few seconds of squabbling he says everyone from the group is just around the corner.. so just glide down the hill to the VFD.  so i do, get in the parking lot and proceeed to try and figure out why in the heck this bike died.

(continuted.....)

[Blake]

I just want to say i really like the design of this bike (except for the sparkplug accessibility which is something to be desired.)  within no joke, 2 minutse i pretty much had the bike apart.  plastic off, seat off, gas tank off.  all with just the tools in the tool kit!  now i have an audience of a good 6 other people standing around making suggestions.  I take off the airbox, and hmm.. look down the front carb.  it looks almost wet. and theres what appears to be steam coming from the intake.  that cant me good.

well we take the sparkplugs out to see which cylinder is the culprit.   the front looks good. nice tan color.  the rear has some carbon on it.. but once again, not alot.  hmm.. so we put them back, try to start it up.. nothing..  but as i put the gastank back on. i notice.. hmm.. for me just going 50 something miles, there seems to be very little fuel in this tank.. couldnt have been more than a gallon and a half at most..  immediately what comes to mind.  My mother siphoning it out of my tank to put in the lawnmower..  oh how conciderate she is.  hmm..maybe thats the problem..  well..its been a good 10 minutes and it seems like its about to start raining any minute so the rest of our group rides off-my dad and i excluded.  we stand around, thinking of what to do.  hes saying he'll go ride back home (probably a good hour or so away) find someone with a truck and be back and pick me up..  its about 12 now, so by the time he gets back it'll probably be around 3..  and plus it seems like its going to start raining.  "well" we thought..  "lets check the plugs..that might be the problem"  so once again everything comes off, we take the plugs out, i put a little big of gas into the dish that covers the shock, we swish the plugs around in that, and i try cleaning them as much as possible using my shirt.  now  its starting to mist.  that very fine rain that starts it all off.. we slap everything back together knowing this is the last chance we'll get.  i crank it over.  poof.. bike starts...  ok...dont turn it off...we get on, drive to the gas station around the corner.. and very much against our wishes, we realize we cant fill up the vision without turning the bike off.  why?  because the same key that opens the gas tank is the one thats in the igniton..  so the bike is turned off, put in a quick 2 bucks worth of gas, it fires up!!! yes...success.. now..we got on the bikes, and start back home..the rain just starting to come down..

immediately i notice the bike is definately not running right..  above what seems 6,000 rpms, it seems like one cylinder craps out and the other is trying to make up for it...sputtering..thats not good..so i keep the bike down near 2,000-3,000rpms..but what do i get? absolutely no power and it seems like it wants to die...  this isnt good..however it gets me up to speed if i baby it JUST right.. however there was ONE "good" (i stress the good very much.. it has a small stutter, but it has power) spot..least likely of all places..  the 4,000-5,0000 rpm range. (what a coincidence eh?).  once i get the bike up to that range in first, i dont take it out of there.  through all the gears, i go 4k-5k, shift,4k-5k, shift, etc..  so i get in 5th, trying to keep it between 4k and 5k which keeps me at around 45-50mph..AND its raining!  plus, one thing i need to mention, going up hills..oh man..i was holding my breath every time.  and there were a LOT of hills.  going up hills, it lost some power, and seemed like it wanted to slowly crap out.  however..after a good 10 minutes of riding i find the sweet spot..  4,500-5,000rpm..yes..i know..very small..but it seems to give me most power (i can get outta the current situation) although the bike is slightly jerking some, and it just feels very touchie here.  but i keep it there and i can now make it over the hills with just slight power loss.  so for the next 45-50 minutse, were riding though very hard rain, trying to keep a constant 45-50 mph speed so i can stay in my target RPM range, and we just have bluejeans and leather jackets on.. a good choice for the 55 degree day, but not good when combined with very cold rain water and 50mph winds..  needless to say..it was very cold.  


(continued once more...this BB service limited my message more than i expected)

[Blake]

and to make a long story short (is that even possible by now?) near our house, there was absolutely no rain, didnt even look like it had rained.  and here we are, soaked.  oh well. at least the vision is running.  we finally get home.. change of clothes, to some warm, clean, dry ones, we go into the back yard, to the shed, and pull out the "parts bike" vision.  we realized we can see what i did wrong to the carbs by just comparing it to the spare set.  we pull that bike into the garage.. and well.. we just get into it and i completely strip the bike down.  all  thats left that isnt in boxes now is the engine in the frame, along with the wheels.  so basically a rolling chassis.  but i got a little too much into that and so i didnt get to chemdip the carbs yesterday.  but today im going out to buy a new can of chemdip (mines pretty much lost its effectivity). and soaking those carbs OVERNIGHT to make sure all the crap thats in there gets destroyed.  plus, im going to do the same thing to the spare set of carbs (which is frozen stuck at the current moment, but the chemdip will make do of that.  

and that, my friends, is how i spent my WONDERFUL saturday.

although i havent specifically pinpointed that the jets were the problem, i pretty much have that picked out. because when the airbox was off over by the firestation, i noticed that the front airjet was clean and shiney, while the rear cylinder one, was kind of dirty and discolored.  something you would expect of a recently clogged one that has been sitting in bad gas all winter.  hmm...

so the moral of the story:  KEEP YOUR JETS SEPERATED AND LAELED WHEN YOU CHEMDIP THEM!!!!   i can only hope none of you have to go through what i did..all because of a stupid mistake i made..  yes yes..i know..im going to get flamed for this..but oh well..i deserve it.. i learned my lesson...


Blake (now down to 1 and 1/2 visions)

[jasonm.]

Blake...if the #'s on the jets are not readable. Then you had them soaking too long! The air jets are slightly bigger than the main jets. Just buy new jets...$10. You do know the #'s???

[Rick G]

Hi Blake, just a word of caution , stuff a rag in the carb throats when you change the air jets. If you drop one in the carb, you wont like the work involved in getting out of the engine!

[Blake]

Jason,

It wasnt from them soaking too long..its from them being stripped..stupid brass wont hold a screwdriver (ive tried everyone i had) and those suckers get themselves lodged inthere pretty tight..  like take today for example.. was trying to take the main airjet out of the parts bikes carbs.   top was nice and shiney.. i could clearly read..120...i made a mental note of that...  and so i proceeded to try to take it out..got a screwdrive that was nearly as thick as the slot for it, and was slightly smaller in width..and turned hard as i could..pushing down all the while..nope..thing just stripped itself to hell..so after a good halfhour or working at it..i take a randomscrewdrive that seemed to have a somewhat reasonable grip, took a hammer, pounded that B*tch down and turned the screwdriver with all my might, and finally came out..man was that thing distorted...  but it came out.after a cleaning and some slight grinding around the sides to clean it up a bit, i put it back in, VERY LIGHTLY..no torqueing what so ever, once it seated i left it alone.  well i immediately tried to unscrew it..sucker was stuck again..so i just gave up and left it in...ill deal with it later i guess..


but yeah... main airjet (what i think it is..the one on top) is 120...one in floatbowl is 135 (on carb without accelerator pump-front one?)   havent gotten to the other carb yet..  and to think.. i was hoping of using the jets from this spare set of carbs in MY running vision. HA!...stupid engineers... why cant they make their jets out of something that WONT COMPLETELY STRIP TO HELL the second you try to get them out..  its the government i tell ya.. its one big conspiracy to get you for another 10 bucks.



And rick,  Yeah.  The carbs are definately coming off before i switch the jets.  going to re-dip them just to make sure everything's a-ok...my dip is a good year old and pretty used up so im going to get a new container.  


so you say new jets are 10 bucks a piece new?  are they some special kind (specific to visions carbs) or are they some universal mikuni kind?  if possibly i'd like to get one of those "jet packs" i see in places like dennis kirk.  A range of main jets so that you can tune it a little.  but if at 10 bucks a pop..  maybe someone can answer me this other question.   How hard is it to drill out the jets?  I have a nice drill press (works wonders for me), and a vise, so would it be possible to just drill out my own jets? Also where would i get drill bits that small? and how expensive are they?  (im asking this only because i really want to put a set of K&N's on here and dont want to have to spend 100 bucks on jets when instead i can just keep drilling them until i get the size i need..who knows..once a good jet setting is found...just think of the help it would give the rest of us visionaries.  knowing the correct jetting (within a reasonable range) so that all you have to do is buy the filters, and maybe a prearranged jetkit and whola-better performance!  


Anyone?  
Thanks,

Blake (Catching that summer riding fever...was out in the garage all sunday today tearing aparts carbs)

[Rick G]

Hi Blake, back when I started as a wrench, (1964) Yamaha jets were hexigon shaped super easy to get out. of coarse that was too easy, so they put slots in them so they could get screwed up! I have not had quite as much trouble with mine  i can usually get them out in one piece . Maybe you shouls try PBlaster on them?