Need help troubleshooting an odd issue

[THE_FATTIE]

Alright, I have been reading all over this site (its amazing, btw). And Im going to list my issues and what I think I need to do to fix them. Im really looking to make sure Im on the right track, and get an outside view from the experts to make sure Im not overlooking anything.

I have had the bike for a few months now and my problems seem to not be getting any better. Ill start the bike, with no choke, and it will idle around 2000 rpms. It will occasionally surge to about 3k and then go back down to 2k all by itslelf. The choke does not appear to make much change at all, and if I try to give it any throttle it will go down to 1k and act like its about to die. It will then occasionally return to 2k and continue the surging. I would say its about 1 time a minute or so.

I dipped and rebuilt the carbs. But I only dipped them for about 2 hours each. I replaced all the o-rings with the kit, and also the carb boot o-rings on the engine side.

I think its running rich, and I have tired adjusting the mixture screws to 2 turns out but I did not notice any change at all.

My next thought is to check the valve clearances, and the carb synk. My next purchase will be the valve shim changing tool, a good set of feeler gauges, morgan carbtune, carb tool, and colortune.

I found the tool here.
http://www.z1enterprises.com/Valve-Shim-Changing-Tool-Suzuki-1696.aspx

Can anyone post a link to a good set of feeler gauges?

Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Casey

 

[THE_FATTIE]

I also would like to join the valve shim club and get a hold of the member that has the excel document for figuring out what shims you need. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks again

 

[cowboyup3371]

Go to the GS Services section of the forum and you'll see the post about the Shim Club - contact GhostGS1 there.

Steve (name and username) has the spreadsheet. Look his name up in the members section and then EMAIL him for it (he needs the email address so he can keep track of who uses it).

Re-dip the carbs and do the valve adjustment. Also check your air filter and ensure it's still good. Then, do the synch after starting with your screws about 3 turns out. You'll adjust them using the highest idle method after all else is done.

Welcome to the forum too

 

[Steve]

Alright, I have been reading all over this site (its amazing, btw). And Im going to list my issues and what I think I need to do to fix them. Im really looking to make sure Im on the right track, and get an outside view from the experts to make sure Im not overlooking anything.

So far, you are doing just fine. :clap: :clap:

I dipped and rebuilt the carbs. But I only dipped them for about 2 hours each. I replaced all the o-rings with the kit, and also the carb boot o-rings on the engine side.

OK, if you have done as much reading on the site as you implied in the first part of your post, you would know that 2 hours is simply not enough.

And, ... what o-ring kit did you get?

I think its running rich, and I have tired adjusting the mixture screws to 2 turns out but I did not notice any change at all.

You "think" it's rich. What are your spark plugs telling you? Believe them, don't guess.

My next thought is to check the valve clearances, and the carb synk. My next purchase will be the valve shim changing tool, a good set of feeler gauges, morgan carbtune, carb tool, and colortune.

I found the tool here.
http://www.z1enterprises.com/Valve-Shim-Changing-Tool-Suzuki-1696.aspx

Can anyone post a link to a good set of feeler gauges?

Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Casey

Good choice of items to check, however:
The "special tool" is optional. Some of us have a hard time using it and find the "zip-tie method" to be much easier.

Feeler gauges are available at Auto Zone, Sears, Grainger, Snap-ON, you name it, you can likely find feelers there, just make sure they go down to .03mm or .0015". I have seen many sets that start several sizes larger than that, they are useless for these bikes. Although many preach the importance of using metric feelers, I feel it's much more important to have and use a set of feelers, regardless of the standard.

Not sure what your "carb tool" is.

The Color tune works great with the older VM carbs, its effectiveness on the BS series carbs (like yours) has not been verified by me.

I also would like to join the valve shim club and get a hold of the member that has the excel document for figuring out what shims you need. Any help would be appreciated.

I could give the standare "do a search" answer here, but there's more to come.

Go to the GS Services section of the forum and you'll see the post about the Shim Club - contact GhostGS1 there.

See? I told you.

Steve (name and username) has the spreadsheet. Look his name up in the members section and then EMAIL him for it (he needs the email address so he can keep track of who uses it).

Yep, that's ME, and it's all down there in my sig.

.

 

[THE_FATTIE]

So far, you are doing just fine. :clap: :clap:

OK, if you have done as much reading on the site as you implied in the first part of your post, you would know that 2 hours is simply not enough.

And, ... what o-ring kit did you get?

You "think" it's rich. What are your spark plugs telling you? Believe them, don't guess.

Good choice of items to check, however:
The "special tool" is optional. Some of us have a hard time using it and find the "zip-tie method" to be much easier.

Feeler gauges are available at Auto Zone, Sears, Grainger, Snap-ON, you name it, you can likely find feelers there, just make sure they go down to .03mm or .0015". I have seen many sets that start several sizes larger than that, they are useless for these bikes. Although many preach the importance of using metric feelers, I feel it's much more important to have and use a set of feelers, regardless of the standard.

Not sure what your "carb tool" is.

The Color tune works great with the older VM carbs, its effectiveness on the BS series carbs (like yours) has not been verified by me.

I could give the standare "do a search" answer here, but there's more to come.

See? I told you.
Yep, that's ME, and it's all down there in my sig.

.

I will admit that when I dipped the carbs I had not done as much reading as I have now. I dipped them about 2-3 months ago. Since then I have not had a lot of time to work on the bike. But quite a bit of time to catch up on some reading. The reason why will be posted below.

I know the kit I bought was the one mentioned in the carb dip guide. I want to say it was something like cycleorings.com but I cant remember exactly.

The plugs that came with the bike where BLACK. so I purchased new ones and have only had it running 1 time after installing them. Is 10ish minutes enough to get a result?

I thought about trying the ziptie method, but I dont want to chance breaking one and having to tear the whole engine apart to get it out.

The only feeler sets I can find locally seem to be way too big. The smallest I have found only go down to about 1mm from what I remember.

http://www.carbtune.co.uk/carbtool.html
That is the carb tool.

And Steve I sent you an email through the site. Im not sure if it worked, but hopefully I will have a reply from you soon.

Hopefully that reply makes sense. How did you get the quotes to break up like that?

This is the reason I dont have much free time, Totally worth it tho!

 

[chuck hahn]

2 to 3 hrs doesnt afford enough time for all the passages or anything else to really get the scale and crud dissolved out of them..Me personally would redip each one for 24 hrs per body. You can do 2 bodies at a time in the gallon can of berrymans.

 

[chuck hahn]

And you poked all the holes in the emuslion tube, the pilot jets, and the bleeder tube...right?? Be mindfull that the bleder tube has not only that little hole in the end, but theres a set right at the base where they go into the bodies and a set just slightly higher than the lower set. Get everything poked, carb sprayed, and air compressor blown out really good. Be sure the tiny hole in the pilot jets are clean too. Hold them up to a light and look in the end and youll see the hole i refer to. A good stiff wire from a wire brush works well to clean this one. Gently push and twist it thru till you can get it to loosen up and slide in and out rather freely.

 

[THE_FATTIE]

Im not so good with all the "tube" names, but I did take a wire out of a wire brush and poked through all the holes I could find. Do you have anything I could referance to check to make sure I dont miss anything?

 

[chuck hahn]

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff
5TH one down..should have lots of pics and usually theres a schematic with all the parts and names right at the beginning of the carbs sections.

 

[7981GS]

This is the reason I dont have much free time, Totally worth it tho!

Cute and QUIET when they are asleep.

Daddy's new toy, eh?

Dankiel

 

[THE_FATTIE]

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/bikecliff
5TH one down..should have lots of pics and usually theres a schematic with all the parts and names right at the beginning of the carbs sections.

Im looking through, but It seems that the ones in the service manual are different carbs....


It turns out that the carbs I was looking for were 260 pages after the first ones... Who knew?

And yes, when she is sleeping she is adoreable. But when she is awake, the faces and noises she makes, all I can do is smile... Its way different than I expected...

 

[asbjones]

I had a maxim 750 that used to do this exact same thing till I cleaned all the carb jets out, how did each of your jets look? did you unscrew them and blast with carb cleaner and compressed air? get em' clean and clear, sounds like a couple are clogged to me, very common problem...

 

[Guest]

It sounds to me like a bad air leak.

 

[rustybronco]

I had the same thought as Chef1366 when I read your 1st post. Either that, or the bench synch is way off.

 

[Big T]

I'll go for the trifecta

Carbs not clean
Air Leak
No sync

 

[Suzuki_Don]

I'm also with CHEF on this.

Did you replace the intake boot (large) "O" rings, if not then this is where your air leak will be.

 

[THE_FATTIE]

I replaced the O-rings between the carb boots and the cylinders if thats what your asking.

I did remove all of the jets and dipped them, then used carb cleaner and canned electronics air, because a compressor was not available. Is there any way to easily find an air leak?

It seems like a carbtune will be most helpful.

 

[Steve]

This is the reason I dont have much free time, Totally worth it tho!

First kid?

Did you get an owner's manual?


It's a short manual:

Keep her wet at one end and dry at the other. If she cries, you have it backwards.

.

 

[Suzuki mad]

It seems like a carbtune will be most helpful.

With what you are saying is wrong with the bike a carbtune will not solved your problems. All it will do is balance the running of the carbs to each other. If its not running the right mixture it wont tell you that.

I know its hard to take but you need to strip and clean those carbs fully first, check/replace the rubber boots from the engine to carb and carb to air box and see what you've got them.

 

[TheCafeKid]

You also didn't mention if, after you put your carbs back on and started the bike if you also installed the airbox. In order to even begin adjusting the carbs the airbox MUST be on! Not only must it be on, it must be properly sealed! Since you have a 550 I'm going to assume you have the two peice airbox. There's the part that connect to the carbs (make absolutely certain all of the boots are on the carbs all the way around. They tend to want to catch an edge and not go on at the bottom...) and the filter section which is under the seat. The filter must be in, the likely the foam around the lid that seals it shut will need replaced. You can use some simple weather stripping tape to do that...
But these carbs will not run properly without the airbox installed completely and sealed. A hanging idle is, assuming your idle speed knob isnt jacked up to a higher speed than it should be, indicative of an air leak somewhere...

And I'll echo everyone else in saying: 2'hours isn't nearly enough time to soak your carbs... Time to give it another shot