I'm currently rebuilding the carbs on my 1980 GS850GL It's got a stock air box w a K&N filter. I recently took a trip around the western states covering Northern Utah, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Northern California, Nevada and back again through Central Utah. My average MPG was around 30... with a 3.3 gallon tank and an extra gallon in a saddlebag I only got a little nervous on the trip back through Central Utah. But I thought I should be getting better milage.
I've been riding this bike since I first started on this forum and all I've really done in way of maintenance is replace spark plugs, seal the airbox and the airbox boots. I've replaced the tires, the stator, R/R and rewired most of the old connectors and fuse box according to the tutorial on Bassclift's site. I've spent a lot of time looking at the other things I SHOULD be doing.. but this is the first time I've actually spent the time effort and money to do the things newbies DON'T do ..to the chagrin of people like Steve and Chuck and Robert Barr.
Finally taking the advice pretty much everyone here... I finally did the valve clearances. After not doing it for over 15000 miles since I got the bike I was scared that everything would be tight and there would be some damage. I probably lucked out (jury is still out of course) with at least a bit of clearance on all the valves. I only had to replace 3 shims, and was able to swap a couple as one was loose just exactly the amount another one was tight.
I tried the zip tie method... never got it.. the shim tool however worked like a charm with just a little bit of practice.
Since I got the bike the idle and milage have sucked... I just got used to it and kept putting it off.
So.. I opened up the the carbs while I was waiting for the shims and got started... I found the #1 pilot screw had broken off and was jammed down in the hole... so looking up that little problem on Bassclift's site I realized that the person that was extracting his pilot screw did NOT have the same carb as I had.. there was no way to get the point of the awl directly onto the tip of the screw ...there was just no angle... so..after a lot of head scratching I devised this tool
[IMG][/IMG]
and applied it here
[IMG][/IMG]
With the following results
[IMG][/IMG] You can see the removed tip there ..if you look closely
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