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I've haven't been on this site for quite some time. I've been out of the XS1100 scene due to other priorities that haven't allowed me to ride.
The last time I fired her up was about 2 years ago, (before then, she sat for a few years without being started) when I moved to my new home. I had to ride her to storage for a bit while we moved. When I was ready to bring her to her new home from storage, she would only backfire tremendously, cough and sputter, and backfire more. So I garaged her, until I could get the time to deal with the problem. Well, that time came this past week. I've been on vacation and thought I'd dedicate some time to get her running again.
Well, the backfiring was driving me crazy and also, she had a stuck left front brake. I had to dismantle the master cylinder and clean the crap out of it, put on some steel braded hoses and flushed some new fluid through. Brakes are good now.
I learned, if this bike sits for a long period of time, and it acts up, clean the hell out of the carbs, and pay attention to detail. I found so much gunk in the jets and bowls. All the hardware and gaskets were in still good order tho, but just needed alot of detail cleaning. I had to pay close attention to the pilot jets. I had to take a little bread tie wire and ream it to get the gunk out.
Once back all together, I noticed the #3 header was not getting hot, so I finally figure out it was a bad spark plug. I swap plugs with another cylinder and noticed the problem moved. So, I replaced the bad plug with a spare (I later replaced all plugs with new ones). A bit later, I noticed #2 didn't get hot. After alot of troubleshooting, I finally realized, I had to take the carbs off again...I found that I didn't tighten the pilot jet on #2 carb, from before.
Well, put the carbs back on again, fired her up, and with my little color tuner thingy, I saw #2 is working again. I synced the carbs with a mercury stick and set the mixtures.
My next chore is to do some cleaning and polishing, fill up the tank and do a ride tomorrow and/or this weekend.
Anyways, while I was doing all my troubleshooting, I was checking the threads for tips and tricks. I saw quite a few threads about similar problem to what I was having.
To summarize, my problems and fixes were:
*Backfiring - caused by spooge in the carbs
*Cold headers - caused by clogged or loose pilot jets and/or bad spark plugs
*Stuck brake - did the master cyclinder spooge hole cleaning trick that's mentioned here on the site (glad, I didn't have to reseat the rubber seal plunger)
Now, other issues (bad ignition coils, problems with stuck floats, etc) could have gave my bike the same symptons. I just wanted to share this, so others could learn from my lessons.
Sorry for such a long message and I hope I didn't bore too much.
Happy riding,
Sam
1978 XS1100E
The last time I fired her up was about 2 years ago, (before then, she sat for a few years without being started) when I moved to my new home. I had to ride her to storage for a bit while we moved. When I was ready to bring her to her new home from storage, she would only backfire tremendously, cough and sputter, and backfire more. So I garaged her, until I could get the time to deal with the problem. Well, that time came this past week. I've been on vacation and thought I'd dedicate some time to get her running again.
Well, the backfiring was driving me crazy and also, she had a stuck left front brake. I had to dismantle the master cylinder and clean the crap out of it, put on some steel braded hoses and flushed some new fluid through. Brakes are good now.
I learned, if this bike sits for a long period of time, and it acts up, clean the hell out of the carbs, and pay attention to detail. I found so much gunk in the jets and bowls. All the hardware and gaskets were in still good order tho, but just needed alot of detail cleaning. I had to pay close attention to the pilot jets. I had to take a little bread tie wire and ream it to get the gunk out.
Once back all together, I noticed the #3 header was not getting hot, so I finally figure out it was a bad spark plug. I swap plugs with another cylinder and noticed the problem moved. So, I replaced the bad plug with a spare (I later replaced all plugs with new ones). A bit later, I noticed #2 didn't get hot. After alot of troubleshooting, I finally realized, I had to take the carbs off again...I found that I didn't tighten the pilot jet on #2 carb, from before.
Well, put the carbs back on again, fired her up, and with my little color tuner thingy, I saw #2 is working again. I synced the carbs with a mercury stick and set the mixtures.
My next chore is to do some cleaning and polishing, fill up the tank and do a ride tomorrow and/or this weekend.
Anyways, while I was doing all my troubleshooting, I was checking the threads for tips and tricks. I saw quite a few threads about similar problem to what I was having.
To summarize, my problems and fixes were:
*Backfiring - caused by spooge in the carbs
*Cold headers - caused by clogged or loose pilot jets and/or bad spark plugs
*Stuck brake - did the master cyclinder spooge hole cleaning trick that's mentioned here on the site (glad, I didn't have to reseat the rubber seal plunger)
Now, other issues (bad ignition coils, problems with stuck floats, etc) could have gave my bike the same symptons. I just wanted to share this, so others could learn from my lessons.
Sorry for such a long message and I hope I didn't bore too much.
Happy riding,
Sam
1978 XS1100E
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