Carburetor tuning continuation...

Ok, so after doing some more research I found out that the Pilot Jets that Mike has are for Mikuni VM style carbs, I happen to have the Mikuni BS carbs. These VM Pilot Jets look as if they are the same but the metering orofice is located near the screw head end instead of the tip. The look and fit as if they are interchangeable but they are not. It's no wonder I've been chasing my tail for the past week or so. Now I need to find the BS style Jets.

After shopping around and checking everywhere this evening after work, I finally found a place that could could order these Pilot Jets even though they did not carry them. I can pick them up on Wednesday...

I got home and decided to fiddle with the bike some more and would try to find the VM Pilot Jet that seems to be the closest equivelent to the BS Jet that I need, there seems to be approximately 20 points difference in jet numbers so I'll jump down to a # 25 VM Pilot which should be close to a #45 BS Pilot. I got'em swapped out and she fired right up but then quite suddenly and I couldn't get here started again. The lights seemed real dim so I put the charger on her and gave her a few minutes, turned the key and the lights were real bright, so I gave her a kick and she started right up again. I then decided to take the charger clips off the battery and the negative lead was so hot it burned my thumb. I shut her down and Mike and I tried to trace the problem to see what was wired wrong.

After messing with the wiring for another hour or so with Mike and I butting heads on what needs to be changed we decided to throw in the towel and call it a night. I don't doubt Mike's abilities, but his suggestions don't compute with my brain. I don't understand enough about the circuit in order to troubleshoot any problems that might arise later.

Tomorrow is another day...

Carburetor tuning continued...

Since changing the Pilot Jet to the #40 made no difference last night, Mike decided to give his buddy a call at Lakes Motor Sports to see what he recommended. His suggestion was to go the opposite direction with the Pilot Jet size and check the valve lash and make sure they were within spec which happens to be .005 +/- .001.

I figured the easiest would be to swap out the Jets again, so I put in #50's and played around with the idle and mixture screws, to no avail...

Time to put the bike away and go put the boat in the water for tomorrow's adventure at Quake on the Lake...

I'll get back to this on Sunday...

Carburetor cleaning...

I grabbed some carburetor cleaner on the way home tonight so I can tear down those carbs and clean them up real good just to make sure that's not the problem with keeping this girl purring like a kitten. I'm glad I decided to tackle this job because there was a mess of corrosion in the fuel bowl of the left carb, looks as if there was water sitting this bowl for quite a while allowing lime scale to build up and there was green corrosion on all the brass inside. So I took a wire bush and carb cleaner to it and she cleaned up very nice. I put them back on and the right carb just pissed out gas again as soon as I opened up the petcock, so off she came again and I took out he jet once again and sprayed more carb cleaner down her throat, put her back together and re-installed. This time it went back together with no leaks, no drips, no errors.

Then I finished mounting the front hinge for the seat. The springs tend to bend inward and rub on the tire, I'm not sure that I didn't move this pan back too far, but I'll play around with it for a while to come up with another solution. I also bent the base of the extension tabs to give the spring base more outward angle hoping to pull the spring away from the tire. This seems to work fairly well except for the fact that the extension keeps pivoting back towards the tire, I think I'll have to weld a spreader bar between the tabs to keep this off the tire.

But that's enough for the evening, 'til tomorrow.