EDIT: 1981 GS650G
I traveled down to help a friend put the finishing touches on his bike, Mr. ssanderson111. He has cleaned the carbs, Kreemed the tank, painted his body work, and in general done a fine job of getting his bike all spiffy. I brought shims and a Carbtune and was just going to help him do the final tweaks. But I must say that I'm a little disappointed with the results. Steve is a great guy and we had fun working on his bike. Here he's taking valve clearance measurements.
And here's Steve cleaning gasket off the head.
After the valve adjustments and carb sync the bike would start fine and idle fine. We'd go for a little spin and after about a half mile the bike would want to die. We'd go back to the garage, hook up the temporary tank, it would start right up. I'd make some minor adjustments to the idle mixture screws and idle knob and it would start, idle, and rev fine in the garage. Using the "highest idle method" the idle mixture screws are all about 2.5 turns out. We went for another little test spin and within a half mile it would stall again.
We noticed that the airbox boots for #2 and #3 were dangerously close to slipping off the carbs. We did our best to get them attached firmly thinking that they were moving off the carbs and causing a very lean condition. Steve says he'll order new airbox boots.
What else, besides replacing the airbox boots, should we try?
Issue #2: There was also a glitch with the valve adjustment. Everything went well except for exhaust #2. When first measured it was less than .04mm so we stuck in the next smallest shim. When we remeasured the clearance was more than .4mm! So we put the original shim back in and remeasured. The clearance was still more than .4mm. We went all the way up to 3 sizes larger than original (original was 2.65x, went up to 2.80) and the clearance was still near .5mm. Nuts I say!
With the advice of a couple of other members who said that the bucket could be temporarily stuck, we went back to one size smaller than the original shim and buttoned it back up. When we started the motor, it made a definite clacking sound but quieted down quite a bit as we ran the motor. I don't think it's as quiet as it should be and it makes more noise than my motor, and I like to run my clearances really loose. I don't have a compression tester. Steve said the bike was down on power and that has me a little concerned. We noticed white smoke from the left exhaust (the #1 and #2 exhaust) when revving it up.
Thanks to Mr. Nessism and Ms. SqDancerLynn1 for letting me call them on the weekend to ask their opinions.
Does anyone else have any thoughts as to this sticky bucket?
I hated to leave Steve (ssanderson111) with a bike that was not running as well as I thought it should but I just ran out of time. Steve was very gracious and we're going to get together again when he has replaced the airbox boots. Steve said he cleaned the gas cap (I thought of the venting issue). Steve also disassembled and cleaned the carbs, replacing the O-rings with a kit from Robert Barr. We noticed that his petcock wanted to leak and I'm wondering if it is flowing properly. Steve did Kreem the tank and I'm hoping that it didn't flake or peel and get stuck in the carbs. I did not take off the petcock for inspection, but it seemed to flow OK when we dumped some gas into the temporary tank.
I'll stop rambling now. Let me know if you have questions. Thank you for your thoughts.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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