Concerns after first ride

[teh_engr]

Hi everyone,

I took my bike out for the first time last night after working on it for about two months. Thank you to everyone who has helped me so much to this point- this board has been a tremendous help. On the whole, the bike ran very well, and I had a great time. I did have two concerns, however, and would like to get opinions. (Note: this is my first bike ride other than MSF and I’ve not worked on a vehicle with carburetor or air cooled motor before, so I don’t have a very good frame of reference for these issues).

1)The idle speed seemed to drop after the bike heated up and when very hot, the engine would stall rather than idle. I’m running 3.5 turns out on the mixture screws (indicated as the stock setting on the carburetor settings sticky for 80-82 550 w/ CV carb). Is this an indication that the idle is set too rich? It seemed to rev/run well otherwise at temperature.
2)I was concerned about overheating because of the idling issue (concern 1) and the engine was very hot. I also thought I might have seen smoke, but it could have been dust or very hot air in front of the bike (it was dark out) at one of the stops where the engine stalled. Also, I heard some creaks from the exhaust when the ride was over. I tried a “water test” mentioned in a few places on the board. Water evaporated quickly (not a boil/spatter) when placed on the clutch cover, but would boil if placed on the cooling fins of the cylinder head. Is this okay?

I appreciate any advice,
Jack

[renobruce]

The creaks and pops you hear when you shut off your bike are normal. Adjust your idle screw to the proper rpm's once the bike is warmed up.
Read your plugs. You may be too rich on your pilot circuit, which would mean you need to turn them in a little.

[don_gibb6512]

Hi everyone,

1)The idle speed seemed to drop after the bike heated up and when very hot, the engine would stall rather than idle. I’m running 3.5 turns out on the mixture screws (indicated as the stock setting on the carburetor settings sticky for 80-82 550 w/ CV carb). Is this an indication that the idle is set too rich? It seemed to rev/run well otherwise at temperature.


I appreciate any advice,
Jack

3 1/2 turns out seems like too much to me but I've never owned 550. Normal on the bikes I've had and worked on for CV carbs has been 2 1/2 turns out and no more than 3. Stalling after it gets hot would indicate you're probably running too rich. I would back them to 2 1/2 and start from there if it was me. You need to become familiar with reading the plugs. There's a lot of information on that in the GSR forums. Here's a link to a good plug diagram.

http://www.4secondsflat.com/plug_chart.html

and a couple of other useful links about plugs:

http://www.4secondsflat.com/Spark_plug_reading.html

http://www.strappe.com/plugs.html

Good luck.

[rapidray]

You need to set the mixture screws with the bike idling. Turn 1 screw at a time in or out till the bike idles the fastest. Re-set the idle & move on to the next screw. This way the screws will be set to what the bike is "telling" you it wants. Ray.

[Nessism]

My old 550T ran best with the pilot screws set at 3.5 turns, not all bikes are the same though. If your air cleaner is dirty or the foam is old it may be restricting flow which will call for a different setting. As the others have mentioned, tweak the screws for the highest idle and make sure they are more or less open the same amount. Some times you won’t notice idle speed changes so if that’s the case, just count the turns and judge based on how the bike runs. And don’t forget to do a vacuum sync on the carbs. Out of sync carbs really shows up in the idle quality so it pays to get this done so you can be sure everything is ok.