Cylinders 2 and 4 are dead cold!

[RiceCooker]

RiceCooker, you are all over the place chasing your tail. Adjust your valves, do a compression test, rebuild your carburetors properly (If you haven't torn them down completely and soaked them for 24hrs. in carburetor dip, you have been wasting your time even touching them) Nessism gave you the best advice in the beginning and you ignored it. The answers are there in those steps.

Hi OldVet I'm guessing they got clogged as barnbiketom implied.
I didn't want to ignore Nessism, but I tried to simplify my carburation section. maybe this makes more sense why I ruled carburation out...

Carburation...
I cleaned n flush the tank, screen is good as new. I rebuilt the petcock vacum valve, orings etc. I took the carbs out of the rack and disassembled apart. Soaked the jets overnite basically all the brass-ware, sprayed them the other day meanwhile I soak the carbs assembly. I freed the lil holes, spread coming out of jets was even. the rule was if I see a passage blew it in with cleaner until I see a good spread , then again with compressed air.
Main jet needles are shinny, same high and same shape. sliders go up and down at the same rate.
Intake passage to the floats have new orings and needles seal properly and their springs all look the same to me. stop all at the same volume on the reservoir. floats float no leaks, free to bounce on the intake needles happily.
Choke plungers seal or don't seal as they supposed to, put new orings on vacuum connectors and gas intake connectors, slider main needles are at the same high, springs look good and diaphragm rubber looks good and seal. they all go up and down at the same rate.
I assembled them back on the rails, bench synched them and visibly test the idle spray with compressed air. they dont leak gas unless I force gas into them. The way I checked for vacuum leaks is blowing with my mouth through the lines in the connectors.

although... again it doesn't mean they got dirty again by any means or acts of god.

I think the rule should be check everything every time you work on something and hopefully I'll get this rice cooker to run top notch.
If they are clogged, i'll take a look at Nessism links, maybe I missed something.

[OldVet66]

RiceCooker, you are missing the point entirely, there are no shortcuts that work. I can tell you that everyone I know who have tried to work on these carburetors including an excellent Harley mechanic that thought spray carburetor cleaner would work were quite shocked at the crud boiling out of their pristine looking carburetors when put in carburetor dip. You are still in the kicking and screaming stage but eventually you WILL drag yourself to the realization that only the right way works on these old Japanese carburetors if you ever do it the right way. I was dragged there myself so I know what I say is true. STOP WASTING YOUR (and our) TIME and listen for a change. Just a little advice from an old fart who has been there and done that. PS petcock rebuilds are known to fail unless you are extremely lucky.

[RiceCooker]

there is no avoiding valve adjustment. and it is much easier than a proper carb cleaning. but hey, maybe i am wrong here.

You seem to be under the impression that checking and adjusting your valves is an expensive, time-sucking job. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Just get'er done, as they say. Even if a complete strip and dip cleans up the carbs for you, the valves still need to be checked and adjusted. The good news is, that can be done while you have the carbs apart.

Well overall the adjustment would take longer If i need to order shims and new gasket. I believe this GL needs shims instead of rocker adjustment right?
I promise if compression test tells me I need to adjust the valves, i'll soak the carbs again till I get the parts for adjustment... Just wanted to avoid to buy shims and maybe a new gasket...

[RiceCooker]

RiceCooker, you are missing the point entirely, there are no shortcuts that work. I can tell you that everyone I know who have tried to work on these carburetors including an excellent Harley mechanic that thought spray carburetor cleaner would work were quite shocked at the crud boiling out of their pristine looking carburetors when put in carburetor dip. You are still in the kicking and screaming stage but eventually you WILL drag yourself to the realization that only the right way works on these old Japanese carburetors if you ever do it the right way. I was dragged there myself so I know what I say is true. STOP WASTING YOUR (and our) TIME and listen for a change. Just a little advice from an old fart who has been there and done that. PS petcock rebuilds are known to fail unless you are extremely lucky.

I hear you OldVet, I might sound like a prick but I just type too much maybe?...
I'll be glad to adjust the valves and will soak the carbs again, maybe run a waterpump on the intake overnite.... we will see.
This is a learning process and hopefully this will help somebody else in the future for this particular bike.
I enjoy WASTING my time on bikes and wanted to share this experience on this forum.
You can always subscribe off or stop posting if this is a waste of time to you in my opinion .
I got Lucky on the Petcock because it works quite well by the way, doesn't leak, carbs suck on the vacuum and appears to let gas flow on reserve and on, primary always work.

[BigD_83]

Well overall the adjustment would take longer If i need to order shims and new gasket. I believe this GL needs shims instead of rocker adjustment right?
I promise if compression test tells me I need to adjust the valves, i'll soak the carbs again till I get the parts for adjustment... Just wanted to avoid to buy shims and maybe a new gasket...

In what did you soak your carbs?

Yes, you will need shims unless someone has swapped out the engine for a 16V design.

Member Steve, has a little spreadsheet to help you with that.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/member.php?u=484

The Shim club (Member Ghostgs1) can also help you with buying/exchanging shims.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=122394

Regardless of the compression numbers, valves need to be checked, and the shims inventoried. At any rate, the bike has a much better chance of running properly if the valves are adjusted properly.

TKent has a trick for checking your clearances. Don't quote me on this but it goes something like this:

if you cannot fit your thinnest feeler gauge, and the shim still turns under the cam lobe at TDC, then you have "some" clearance. Go down one size in thickness. If you cannot spin it at all, then go down two sizes.

It takes about 15-30 minutes to do the valve check...Be prepared with a new valve cover gasket though. Even if you don't have one on hand, you can afford to wait if it's not firing on the #2/4 pots. You shouldn't be riding it at this point anyhow.

Once you have all of your shims inventoried, then you can contact Ray (Ghostgs1) for the shims you need.

By the way, I don't know why, but I sense you might be a long ways away from the US. Why don't you let us know where you call home? Somebody might be handy to you.

Find your User CP at the top of the page, create a signature with your bike, and fill in your location information.

[OldVet66]

I was writing when you beat me to the post. It seems you are getting on the right track. New carburetor and boot O-rings are required (cycleorings.com), new boots always a good idea. You'll need a new valve cover gasket and tool to depress the buckets. A good compression reading might be enough to go on with some of the other things you need to do, but will never tell you if the valves are about to get too tight and will affect carburetor sync. Z1 Enterprises are a good source for gaskets, shims, etc.

[RiceCooker]

good deal OldVet66. I think I saw a a mixture screw for another mikuni B34 which I couldnt find anywhere else but at Z1 long time ago, if I recall.
Didn't know they also have shims. I'll check those out. What I've done to get the shims out before is stick a zip tie under it through the sparkplug hole might /might not be possible in this one. way cooler if I can use a specialty tool
I'll give more details on this bike when I get there.

BigD_83 Shims it is then.
As I posted early I'm checking out a compression test tool from Pepboys tonite.
Engine it's stock 8 valve, bikes complete, all original unmolested (not even serviced i think lol ) low miles for an 83. 8 K miles
I dont know why the've called it the uGLy Im starting to like those lines.

This is the first time I follow a forum.... literally. You guys rock so far loving this forum.
I know, RiceCoooker sounds overseas am I right? but that's just for the sake of this project since it's a you know, import bike. Lil racist? maybe.
A friend calls Rice boilers whatever is not a harley but anyways, Im in New Jersey btw. cheers.

[BigD_83]

ah..it's the Jersey accent that was throwing me off

[OldVet66]

.
A friend calls Rice boilers whatever is not a harley but anyways, Im in New Jersey btw. cheers.

I've heard that a lot, My Harley friends called them rice burners until they tried to race one, then they made their bikes louder so maybe you wouldn't notice them getting wiped slick. Not that you can't make a Harley straight line fast, but that costs more than a Busa, noise is cheaper

[RiceCooker]

# 2 Run! till I took the carbs apart again...


Ok, crapy compression tester was missing the oring on the sparkplug adapter. Also there was quite play fitting it so this numbers are not accurate. I might do another test If I get another tester.

although this readings are way too low I think... they were constant.

dry test:
cyl 1: 60 psi
cyl 2: 55 psi
cyl 3: 40 psi
cyl 4: 40 psi

wet test
cyl 1: 62 psi
cyl 2: 58 psi
cyl 3: 45 psi
cyl 4: 45 psi

I put some wd-40 around the sparkplug adapter in the tester and I could see the air/oil spray out between the engine and the tester so this wasn't an accurate test. Also tried to compensate the missing oring with sparplug washers but I got same readings.

Spray a small shot of ether or even wd-40 into the airbox or sync ports when bike is idling. if 2 and 4 pick up.. you have plugged carbs. easy

I forgot the basics here uh? seems like they got clogged. they did pick up while idling when sprayed.
I got #2 unclogged just by spraying carb cleaner while running. I checked after engine cooled down so only # 4 was clogged. #2 Ran!

Not taking any chances now... I took them all apart again...and got a new chem dip can, I'm dipping the carbs again. I'm dipping one at a time for a full 24 hrs and all the brass' been dipped since I started (Tuesday). Should be done by tomorrow nite!

Also will put a gas filter, although I didn't see any particles in the bowls, not a bad idea (since they got clogged)

[BigD_83]

Those are extremely low numbers, and I don't have much confidence in them. The missing o-ring could certainly be playing a part there.

Also, did you have the throttle wide open when you were testing? Low numbers like that could be accounted for by not being able to draw in air to compress.

[JTGS850GL]

Did you do the compression numbers with the throttle held open? If not you'll get VERY low readings.