Missing valve gasket chunk -- inside motor?

[fb9]

82 850 G

Having some performance issues, and before I made any 'normal' help posts, I am double checking a ton of things to help rule out the simple stuff.

Wont go into a ton of detail, because I want to rule of a lot of the basics on my own, but here are some rough symptoms:

• Hunting idle
• Cruising will sometimes surge as if too lean/lacking fuel
• Carb sync will see one of the metal rods just drop to zero for a slip second.
  Hoses will pop off the hose barbs every so often as well.

Could be a number of things, so again I am going over a lot of stuff again on my own for sure: dipping carbs, new plugs, maybe new wires, continue to verify jetting [4:1 exhaust.. grrr], etc etc. Been chasing my tail for quite a while, but I know I need to verifiy a lot first before we can get down to the fun stuff.

As part of my general verification, I went over the valve clearances again.
Mostly in the .06 - .08 range, so that is cool. Actually I had a few widen up some -- for example a .05 is now .08.. must have burned out some spider webs from sitting too long? Probably not a big deal, but mentioning it just in case...

My concern is that I noticed that the Real Gasket was missing a few small chunks from where it over hung inside and made contact with spinning cam lobes.

I didn't happen to see the chuncks floating around in the oil pools next to the shims, so I wonder if they got 'sucked up' inside somewhere bad.

Any thoughts on if this if it may have happened and could it be a cause to some of the performance problem?
I can snag a picture later if needed.

I'd like to think my problem is just something stupid like blocked carb passage/fuel starvation/jetting/air leak, but with my luck I have a little peice of rubber floating around inside motor doing silly stuff.

Either way, lots of work to do still, but I hope this doesn't turn into a big mess!

[Octain]

So how is it going?
I cant believe no one replied to this..

[TomE]

If your bike is like mine, it has a wet clutch. Those wet clutches tend to shed cork? or whatever the friction material is, and the debris ends up as oil soaked crud in the bottom of the engine case. So I would not worry too much about bits of gasket floating around inside the engine.

Surging like it's running out of fuel? Just fixed a problem like that on my '81 GS1100. Turned out to be the Petcock. It only showed up when running faster than 60 mph. I don't know if the manual says how fast the gas should come out (2 minutes for a quart?) but a flow check might be a good idea.

[fb9]

Thanks for info

Been seriously side tracked.. carb #3 is in the dip at this time.


Put a new Pingle petcock on last year, but I do plan to inspect for debris build up in there in case that's part of it.

Will check those float levels too..

More to come in 100 years when I get back to bike wrenching..


Thanks for the info

[bwringer]

You do have new intake boots and o-rings, right?

[fb9]

You do have new intake boots and o-rings, right?

Yes sir.

I've done all the 'normal' things; and am going all back over them again.

If I continue to have issues I'll make a new official tech support post with the most current details and long list of everything done.

Just wanted to make sure the small gasket chunk wasn't a major issue.

I do appreciate the guidance!

Right now I'm leaning towards my issues being float level, gas tank crud, or spark wire related. We will see!

Haven't had a lot of time latley because of busy summer school semester and other home projects.

Part of me just wants to turn the thing into scrap metal, but that is just generic frustration. Having this time away is good. At worst, I'll be motivated enough to to get it limping along... far enough to drive it to the dump for one of you guys to salvage

She's a good bike ... just a learning owner.

[SqDancerLynn1]

Make sure you plug the petcock vacuum line when you do the carb sync. could cause the popping.. Loosing parts of a gasket is probably OK, How big was it? It could clog the oil pump

[fb9]

WOW!

Put her all back together.

Major changes since last time:

Carbs re-dipped, carb cleaner sprayed, compressed aired out.

Re-checked float levels -- 1 right at bottom of range, one slightly below.
One was right at the lower extreme and another was actually below it!

Replaced spark wires (Dyna green coils). Guy at the shop helped me find some decent ones that would work. A little tight, but was the right stuff.
I discovered I ad crimped my Dyna wires incorrectly for the part that gos into the coil. The 'bite into wire' part was acting as the 'coil terminal' and the 'coil terminal' was acting as the 'bite into wire'. Maybe could result in an inconnsistant connection when bouncing down the road.

Carb Synced -- was very consistent at the higher RPMS recommended for sync and then when backed back down.

Think she might be good to go!

Has Never run this good and am happy with it.
Could probably use additional fine tuning on carb related things (highest idle, fine tuning chops for 4:1 pipe -- but it all should be pretty close. Chased my tail enough on it trying to figure out those little gremlins that were NOT jet related apparently!)

However -- In all these weeks she has been down I've really talked myself out of the bike. It's just too tall and top heavy for me. Think I'm going to have to part ways and get someting like a 650 that's 100lbs+ lighter..

We'll see..


Thank you again GS folks