New, need help

[touchedbyanun]

Hey everyone, I am helping a friend work on his 80xs1100, its not firing on cylinders 1 and 3. pulled the carbs, they all look fine, spark is fine as far as I can tell. The diaphram on 3 was pumping up with air, took it apart, no holes no nothing, put it back together and it feels like it is working fine, but still 1 and 3 will not fire. I am thinking there is a vac issue, but am not familiar with these bike enough to know where to start looking. Any help would be appreciated, thanks guys!

[Incubus]

Cylinders 1 and 3 run off different coils, so that limits the likelihood that it is a spark issue, Unless you have two plug caps needs attention. More information would help. What do you know about this bike? Has the bike been sitting for a long time? When was the last time it ran correctly, if you know?

Missing on 1 and 3 would generally point to a continuing issue with the carbs, but more information is necessary for a better diagnosis.

Patrick

[touchedbyanun]

Sadly I know very little about the bike, when it ran right last etc. It has 15,xxx miles, previous owner said they rebuilt the carbs, and by the looks of it I would say they did. With the air box off and the bike running, the slides (part that slides up and down inside the carb with the needle, right??) on 1 and 3 are not moving, and on 4 it is jittery, can't recall 1. When its running it made no difference if I manually opened the slide or not. Any further ideas, thank you!

Oh also, we were able to use a gas gun and 1 to fire, and the idle smoothed out quite a bit for a couple of seconds, we don't have a compression guage, but if I had to guess I would say that compression is good. Thanks!

[yamtom]

check the compression for sure

Check the compression for sure, know what youve got to start with. For what its worth, when you check compression on a long sitting engine, you can get results that arent ultimatley correct since the rings can not want to seat properly for a while. You may get some results from using an unlit propane torch at the mouth of each non running cylinders carb. If it suddenly runs, you got idle parts plugged. I am thinking the most obvious is carbs since you know they were cleaned but dont know when. Do these above and report back why doncha.

[Incubus]

Loosen the drain plugs on carbs 1 and 3 and make sure you are getting fuel into the bowls. If not, your needle valve may be stuck. If you have gas in both bowls we'll have to check the jets to make sure they are clear.

Patrick

[CatatonicBug]

If you don't have a manual, you can download one (or two) from the link in my signature. I would point at the carbs myself too... It doesn't take much to mess them up, and there are a lot of tiny passages that can get clogged easily. Be sure to take the emulsion tubes out as well as cleaning the pilot jets and the tiny jet down in the float bowls (that one gets uses when the choke is pulled).

[DGXSER]

Yes, a good compression check would be very helpful. Even pulling all the plugs, and put your thumb over the plug hole trying to hold it down while cranking will tell you if one or both are half dead cylinders, maybe bent valves?

Adding fuel makes it fire then almost has to be carb issues. 1 & 2 are fed fromt he same petcock, so the fuel system is sending it to the carbs. But for some reason #1 cant use it correctly. Could be the PO removed them and cleaned up all the eye candy stuff really nicely, maybe even put new jets in, but did not clean all the passages or say the enrichment jet in the float bowl. These are things that will cause the carbs not to work correctly no matter how nice they look.

As to the movement of the slides, well, they work off of load, not throttle movement. One of the Mods TC (TopCatGR) posted THIS you tube video which shows the carbs with no load and the slide reactions. Also THIS video with the carbs under load and the reaction.

[touchedbyanun]

Thanks for posting the videos, the 1 and 3 slide do not move at all regardless of load or no load. I currently have no way of doing a compression check, so I will have to try putting my finger over the hole, what should I expect doing this? Bowls have gas, I cleaned out the carbs, same issue. I have a manual, but if you use small person words it works the best for me lol, thanks guys!

[Incubus]

The slides not moving is going to be a problem, but it is not your immediate problem. The needles at the bottom of the slides go through the main jets and control the midrange. From what I am hearing, though, you have no ranges.

Here's something else to try, but you have to pull the carbs again. In the throat of each carb there are three small holes at the point where the butterflies meet the top when the butterflies are closed. These are part of your idle circuit. Remove the slow jets on 1 and 3. Make sure the jets are clear. Then spray carb cleaner down the hole you just removed the slow jets from. If your idle circuit is clear the carb cleaner should bubble up from those three little holes. If it does not, let the carb cleaner sit in there a while then blow compressed air into the hole to try to clear it.

This only addresses the idle circuit. Have you inspected the diaphrams at the top of the offending carbs to make sure they are not torn and were properly seated when the carb covers where screwed back down?

Patrick

[touchedbyanun]

Im not sure what you mean by range, sorry, new to this stuff lol. It is rough in low rpm's, and clears up high up. When riding it, it feels as if its gonna die at low speed, but once it gets going it feels like a rocket ship. I will look in the manual and see what these jets are, thank you!

[bikerphil]

This thread will help you with your carbs....

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...light=carb+101

[touchedbyanun]

Thank you! That will help loads, now i just need to wait for my next set of days off....well...maybe I will start tonight. Thanks!

[touchedbyanun]

Hey everyone, finally got time away from work and moving to be able to give my friend a hand. We tore 1&3 apart and cleaned the carbs step by step. On #1 the pilot jet was so plugged that it took a min for it to come clean. On #3 the pilot jet is pretty well destroyed to the point that I am unable to get it out of the carb. Is there a remedy for this? The top portion is just so tore up that getting anything to unscrew it would just destroy it more. This is also happening to #1, as I am unable to remove it again. However we did get everything put back together, started it up, was rough, but only idling around 600rpm, adjusted the idle up to 1100, it cleaned up and sounds smooth. So for now its a victory.

Next issues, the blinkers will blink once or twice and stay solid...wtf..lol

also, where can I get a GOOD gasket for the valve cover? You know, the thing on top.

Also have any of you used the 4 individual cone air filters? what brand? What issues did you run into?

Also, thanks for everyones help! Have a great Day!

[natemoen]

If one and three are that plugged you netters pull apart 2 and 4 as well. You don't need a basket on the valve cover, you cam use rtv silicon in its place. Lots of guys use the pod filters. You do need to rejet the cards to compensate for the excess air that it introduces into the engine. I would suggest getting it going well with the stock airbox before you go changing it out to pods

As to getting the jet out of the hole. Try soaking tje hole with carbon cleaner for awhile and using a bolt extract. Try heating up the tube the jet is in with a small pen torch. Some people have had luck putting the carbon on the freezer. But if they were that dirty then you know the other two are just as bad so clean them all well. You can buy replacement jets so when you get the one jet out you need to replace it.

The turn signals is probably just low voltage right now. It's a common thing that if your voltage is even a little low they won't flash.

[CatatonicBug]

Having a hard time typing today Nate??

+1 on all of what Nate said though. Clean ALL the carbs, and make sure you get ALL the parts out and clean them thoroughly. I had to use an easy-out on one or two of my pilot jets the first time.

ALL gaskets except the float bowl gasket, the exhaust gaskets and the head gasket can be replaced with RTV. My favorite stuff comes in a can, and is called "The Right Stuff".

If you rev the engine, do the signals start to blink again? Be sure the battery is fully charged, and you may want to go through all the ground points on the bike and clean them. Add a dab of anti-sieze to the contact points while you're there to improve the contact, and prevent additional corrosion. Don't forget to take the Reg/Rect off and clean it's mounting points as well (it grounds to the frame).