Take a gamble, get valves re-cut/lapped or cheap new head?

[pete]

Sounds like some good progress! Hopefully you can get the rest sorted now and be back up and running

[mike-s]

Ok, have been procrastinating the repair as it had become a royal pain in the butt and i was coming to the end of my rope with this one, I finally had a crack at it this afternoon and i'm pretty sure it's been fixed. It looks like it was simply a leak on the hose on the fuel tank vacuum switch . I've given it a good going over and replaced a few other things as well like a newer float needle/seat (the previous one was less than fantastic ) intake manifold o-ring (absolutely shagged).

[pete]

Excellent!

I've been replacing every O ring and oil seal along the way in my rebuild as they've all been anywhere from just hard to brittle and cracking.

A lot of them have broken into several pieces during removal they're so brittle.

[mike-s]

Didn't take a photo of mine, but suffice to say the old o-ring looked like someone had gone to the recess that the o-ring resides in and filled it to the edge with black epoxy resin and smoothed it over, they were in the worst condition i have EVER seen o-rings. Took a good 3-4 minutes with a very pointy cornered flat-blade screwdriver to get each one of them out too. They were stuck right in there.

Previously I had made custom 1.5mm paper gaskets (using gasket paper) and i think they were doing the job, but as the problem hadn't gone away I replaced them just to rule them out as a cause, and THEN noticed the hose looked a little iffy. Then again I had bought the o-rings so I figured I might as well use them.

[mike-s]

A mini update:
There's still some hiccupping popping and farting from the bike. As it turns out it always pays to not assume anything and to be thorough. Checked and the jets on the "new" carb were 117.5's, and as it turns out the OEM/original ones were 115's. Along with that the "new" pilot jets were clogged, one i could barely see through, and i KNOW it was partially clogged. The other was totally blocked, and combined with the whole o-ring thing, would go a long way to explaining needing to ramp the idle up a fair way to get it going, and then having it rev out on me.

Not expecting it to be perfect, but i swapped in the jets that were on the old carb as well as checked them to make sure they weren't clogged, which they still weren't.

Next up, taking her for a good 40-50km run to see if that's done the job (aside from the idle issues which are marginal to crap all the time, the problems are only really start showing themselves once it's warmed up, which kind of makes sense really).

[pete]

Good stuff, sounds like you're getting somewhere! At least you're learning where the issues are now and hopefully you can knock them on the head one by one and have a sweet ride

[mike-s]

Fixed the bastard. There WAS an airleak between a cv cap and a carb body as well as a slight airleak on the o-ring on the idle needle on the same carb. As this made the one cylinder run well before the other and messed the idle sync up and impossible to sort out. Also it turns out that the throttle cable adjustment was out a bit as well, which was my cockup .

Looking forward to payday so i can re-register it & take her out for a blast

[pete]

Now that's what I call progress! Well done, bet you can't wait to just get on and ride that thing...

[Charlie G]

Congrats! I hope the registration process is an easier road for you.

cg

[mike-s]

Registration is a piece of cake, I have already taken it down to my local mechanics for the inspection. I was there for about half an hour just chatting away and the actual inspection itself took about 5 minutes as as long as all the buttons and lights work, the tires are within legal limits, it doesn't look like it's about to implode, isn't leaking oil and it's not obscenely loud, it'll pass muster easily. All i have to do is just hand over fist-fulls of cash and I'm done.

They knew there was an idle/airleak i was trying to sort out and took it into account merely as an annoyance and not a registration-stopper. Even then it wasn't *that* loud, would just run up to about 3krpm and annoy me more than anyone else.

[mike-s]

Been busy the last few weeks and haven't had a chance to take her out until today. Went for Took her out for a decent length test ride today and the problem has gone, thank God.

Next up is investigating the motard conversion , got the bits, just have to figure out the logistics .

[pete]

Good to hear she's sorted

Motard conversion? You need to expand on that...

[mike-s]

I know you've already found that thread, but i'll link it anyway, see here .