Rode the $50 Project tonight!

[greatnw]

Well, it's more like the $700 project so far, but that is good!

Cleaned the carbs with carb cleaner and the Harbor Freight ultrasonic cleaner. I'll post about that later, suffice it to say it did a nice job. No leaky float bowl on #2!!! Polished the bowls and the caps. Replaced all the screws with hex head stainless screws. Looks nice.

Fired right up. Ran and popped a little. I tightened all the stuff I just had holding things in place. Torgued the items that needed that and set out down the road. Fortunately I live on a long cul de sac and was able to cruise up and down and few times. The longer I ran it the better it got off idle. Didn't do anything other than blip the throttle a little and you can certainly feel the power. I like low end torque more than high end revs. That was part of the appeal of this bike.

Shifted through all the gears, so far so good. All the brakes seemed to work well. (Rebuilt the m/c's front and rear, combo clean/rebuild the calipers, new pads up front.)

One thing I can't sort out yet are the lights. I have turn signals and they actually blink. The tach works so I must be charging.

I can short a red wire to the blue empty wire in the headlight bucket and it kicks the relay located under the tank at the very front of the frame. With the key off it lights all the lights as long as the red wire is supplying power. I checked the reserve lighting device and it is working. I can turn the key on, short the red to blue and all the lights stay on until I turn the key off.

If I simply turn the key on and start the bike, no instrument or headlight.

Any ideas? I noticed the blue wire in the circuit goes up into the speedometer. My wires are hacked in that circuit, but I thought I had that pretty well sorted out.

Hoping to sync carbs tomorrow and unravel the headlight mystery so I can give it a more thorough test run.

Awesome! It has been a fun project. I have before and during pictures and promise to post them.

I could not have gotten this far without you guys on this site. This is simply the most helpful sight I've ever been on.

Thanks to all.

[DGXSER]

Not sure what the light problem is, probably because its early but the headlight on the bike will not come on until you start the engine. It saves battery juice to start the machine.

[cywelchjr]

It sounds like the relay is working so I would check for the trigger diode. It's in the line to the relay from the stator coils and at least on the 400's (which have the same system) it's known for burning out. A simple 2 watt standard diode will fix it.

[greatnw]

Thanks Cy,

I experimented and got the light to come on by jumping into the accessory wiring. Light comes on with key.

I will check the diode. Figured there had to be something in the circuit that wasn't kicking the relay in.

Thanks.

[greatnw]

Spent a fair amount of time riding the bike today. I can see why everyone likes them. I love the shaft on this bike compared the the big honda I've been riding.

Couple of things. After searching a little looks like I need to fix first gear. Hard acceleration causes almost a skipped tooth feel. All the other gears seemed to work great.

Need to sync the carbs. Had a poor attempt at a home made sync tool and it simply didn't work. My bench sync was ok. I didn't have much power off idle but once up into the rpms it wanted to roll.

My idle is all over the place. I'm betting I have a vacuum problem somewhere. When I start it with full or half choke the engine just wants to race wildly after a few seconds of warming up. Trying to restart 15 to 20 minutes after turning it off hot usually doesn't work. It fires right up when cold.

I haven't adjusted the valves or cam chain yet. Wanted to get rolling to see what I had.

Fun stuff.

[CatatonicBug]

You may want to check your idle circuit. The choke is actually an "Enricher" and adds more fuel to the intake, even with the carb butterflies closed. There are 3 tiny holes located in the carb throat through which the fuel gets sent into the air mixture when the choke is pulled out. Sounds like your primary and main jets are ok, but the ones that get fuel from the bottom of the float bowl may be clogged somewhere.

Vacuum leak may also be an issue. Try spraying some ether around the different possible leak areas to see if that changes anything.

[DGXSER]

I'm betting a synch will do wonders for it. I've read on here about all kinds of idleing and starting problems that all went back to synching. I know my bike runs MUCH better after synching the carbs up.

Not sure what your getting at with the choke racing issue, but with a manual choke, the engine will idle up faster when it has warmed with the choke on. Mine will race up to almost 3K with full choke after it warms up.

And Yeah, sound sliek your in for a tranny trip to fix the gears.

[oldyam80sg]

I looked at your profile and see that you have an 80 SG just like myself.When you turn the key the headlight should not come on-neither should the instrument lights-if everything is wired correctly.The diode might be non existent like mine was(actually was a powdery mess).Replace it if it is broken and the headlights and other lights should go on when the bike is started.

[John]

You may want to check your idle circuit. The choke is actually an "Enricher" and adds more fuel to the intake, even with the carb butterflies closed. There are 3 tiny holes located in the carb throat through which the fuel gets sent into the air mixture when the choke is pulled out.
.

Sorry Bug, but this is not quite accurate.
These three holes are actually in the pilot circuit, not the choke circuit. These three holes supply fuel through out the entire RPM range. If you look inside the outlet side of the carb you will see, at the 10 o'clock position, a large orifice. This is where the fuel for the choke is introduced into the airstream.

[CatatonicBug]

Sorry Bug, but this is not quite accurate.
These three holes are actually in the pilot circuit, not the choke circuit. These three holes supply fuel through out the entire RPM range. If you look inside the outlet side of the carb you will see, at the 10 o'clock position, a large orifice. This is where the fuel for the choke is introduced into the airstream.

Thanks for the correction John. I just had the two things combifused