I am stumped

[dbeardslee]

I may fully disassemble the carbs and ultra sonic clean them with lacquer thinner but I need to research that first to make sure I am not making a bomb in my garage. I could of course run the machine in the yard. I do know that some people do use flammable cleaners in these units.
Rob

I'm not sure what lacquer thinner will do to the rubber parts that are in the carbs. You've had two sets of carbs on the bike, and each one has exhibited the missing problem. With the fix on the butterfly the situation improved, but you've still got some issues. To me that suggests that you probably had multiple issues.

I had an issue with Betsy some years back and I was convinced it was the carbs. Backfiring, rough idle, stumble at low rpms, etc. So I opened up the carbs and tweaked on 'em five times. Then I found out the problem was bad coils.

I'm not saying your coils are bad - I'm just saying you can get buck feaver on carbs, but if they're not the problem then they're not going to fix the problem either. I would adjust them, and I'd definitely see what the colortune has to say, but I don't think I'd clean them again after all the cleaning they've already had.

I'd start with a DMM and check the resistances and the voltages at the TCI. I'd also take a real good look a the wires under the timing cover. My brother had an issue with a bad miss in his about a month ago. It was intermittent, and his resistances to the pickup coils looked good. But in checking the wires under the timing cover I found one with the insulation rubbed off just enough to expose the core. That wire would move around, and every now and then it would make contact with metal and short out the pickup. I had to really feel around on those wires to find it.

Your mention of the neutral indicator kind of made me think of that. IIRC there's a splice in the lines under that gold colored sheath that runs out of the timing cover. There's also a hole in the sheath where the neutral switch wire goes in, and I've had oil get down inside that sheath before and cause issues. Might not be a bad idea to check those connections. JAT