I have a 79 Suzuki GS550L. We'll it's really an E, thats built like an L, but that's another story... The bike has the stock air box/filter and stock exhaust.
I bought it about a month ago and have been working on it since. I didn't take it for a proper test drive when I bought it but it started and ran and puked gas out of the carb overflow. When I got it home and registered it, I took it for a drive and it had no pep. I noticed cylinder 3 wasn't getting hot.
I took the carbs off the bike, stripped them down, soaked them in carb cleaner, blew them out with an air compressor, rebuilt them with a new o-ring kit from Robert, went to Suzuki and ordered new needle valves/seats/washer/floats/gaskets/o-rings for for rubber manifold boots on cylinder head.
I also ordered a new petcock from Z1 and installed. its a KL18-4358 because the one for my bike is discontinued. Someone told me this one would fit in a previous post and it does.
The floats were all sitting at 25mm when I put them in and I saw one place that said to set them at 24mm and one at 26mm so I left them at 25mm. Pilot fuel screws set at 1 turn out, pilot air screws were set to 1 1/4 turns out. Originally the pilot fuel screws were around 1 3/4 out and the pilot air screws 2 turns out but it wasn't running properly and I didn't trust the last guy hadn't messed with it.
Put the carbs back on the bike and fired it up. Adjusted pilot air screws out to around 2 turns out to increase idle as mentioned in the carb cleaning guide. I took the plugs out of the bike and they were very black and sooty. I replaced the spark plug boots that screw into the end of the wires. Tried driving and still had hesitation but all 4 exhaust pipes got hot.
Motorcycle had no power through acceleration and has hesitation. I replaced the plugs and made sure they were gapped to around .03 with my gap tool. I screwed in the pilot fuel screw 1/8 of a turn to 7/8 out and have messed around some with the air screws. Currently the pilot air screws are set at around only 3/4 of a turn out. I started up the bike with the new plugs and RPMs were a little hi for idle and after about 30 seconds the RPMs came down to normal. I took the motorcycle for a ride and still have the same no power/hesitation through acceleration. Check the brand new spark plugs and they are BLACK.
I believe that black sooty spark plugs mean a rich mixture? I haven't check the valves (I don't really know how - I am pretty new to this whole mechanic thing). My friend helped me set the points gaps and firing and I believe it is proper.
I actually didn't disassemble the slide assembly and soak it because I didn't want to mess with the carb sync (and the carbs didn't seem dirty to me to begin with - I believe the guy who sold me the bike somehow "cleaned" them but didn't put the needle valve/seats back into the same carbs which is probably why they weren't sealing and the overflows were leaking?).
Just wondering how much to mess around with the pilot fuel screw and pilot air screw? I would think if the bike is running rich that the pilot fuel screw should tend to be screwed in and the pilot air screw out? I would assume the jets are stock? The main jet is an 80 and I can't remember what the pilot jet is. Also, what can I clean the plugs with?
Just wondering what to do from here. I've tried to drive it and check the plugs and they are always black and sooty but haven't tried the plug chops mentioned in that link above. At some point I will try the chop tests outline in that link above. I probably need to clean the plugs every time? What do I use to clean the plugs - they are very black and dirty.
i watched a video on YouTube of a guy that screwed in a spark plug viewing window thinger and could actually see the colour of the burn in the cylinder? Does anyone have one of those things and does anyone work with one?
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