No start

[Firehawk]

A week ago, the bike idled smoothly at 1000RPM, kinda chopped through low range (1k-3k) acceleration, smoothly went through the rest of the powerband, decelerated smoothly and held the same constant idle speed in both neutral and during clutching. But she was pouring gasoline through the cylinders at a horrific rate. I think I managed 20mpg last week, before I endeavored to change it.

Now, to today's events. I didn't get to check compression, I have class in 30 minutes and I was just trying to get her to start.

I went out there, sprayed some starter fluid in. It fired up, and promptly died.

I put the mixture screws to 4 (360 degree) turns out from a gentle seating.

I sprayed the starter fluid in again, this time it roared to life and stayed there.

But it wouldn't idle. It kept dying. I put the idle screw in as high as it would go, and it finally stayed at idle. I took the carbs off, backed them down to 2 (360 degree) turns from a gentle seating.

Fired it back up, and it had too high of an idle and it was pretty gassy. It was also idling extremely rough. And there seemed to be popping in the intake ports, as though gas was igniting before even getting to the cylinder.

Backed the idle screw down to where it was idling around 1000, and rode it around the complex. Did not want rev down smoothly at all. If I stopped throttling, it would sit at the RPM and slowly drop down to idle speeds.

I took it out on the road then. Opened her up. She rocketed smoothly between the 2k-7k RPM levels, and kinda faltered/faded up until 8.5k.

And sadly, second gear seemed to be skipping.

She doesn't want to idle. She doesn't want to rev down smoothly and quickly as she used to. She has wierd clutch idle. Sometimes it's at 3k, sometimes its at 1.5k, sometimes its at 1k. She backfires during deceleration. She sounds gurgly during deceleration and constant velocity.

During acceleration, she has a much more aggressive tone than she did a week ago.

It is almost as though I got a completely different bike, yet it looks the same.

I'm completely out of ideas, short of removing those plugs and going back to super rich running.

[LoserShoes]

Has anybody ever checked/set the float levels? Might also need new float needles and seats.

Did you do your test ride with the aircleaner connected? Makes a difference.

Steve

[DiverRay]

Firehawk,
You need to get the carbs synced, once you have the floats checked. That should cure just about all the bike problems. Any other problems you may have will need a new thread.
Ray

[Firehawk]

ha. I was just kind of reporting the fact that it seemed to have the second gear problem. No real need for any discussion of it past that.

Carb float levels are good. I adjusted that, and had it double checked by the shop I took the carbs too. As well as the diaphragms and springs. They said the carbs are just fine.

And the carbs should still be synced. I didn't mess with it and the shop would have mentioned (hopefully) if they messed with it.

But the carbs are clean and supposedly in good working order, according to the shop.

The only thing I can think of is that my boots are leaking...bad. I've had the carbs on and off a lot attempting to get them right, and those boots were brittle and whatnot before I started. I guess if I can get it to start again, I should test that out.

Another possibility is that my cam chain is bad? Perhaps?

Or that my rings are bad and I'm getting low compression?

Or all three?

[DiverRay]

One last thing to try, if the carbs are still on, is the fuel flow. When you loosen the plugs on the bottom of the carb bowls, do you get clean fuel running out, or just dripping? Also check the fuel line connections. The '78/'79 carbs had two "T's" on each side. The top "T" was a vent, and the bottom "T" is for fuel. This shouldn't be the case with your carbs, but who can tell....
Ray

[Firehawk]

Fuel lines are good. Carbs are getting fuel from the tank.

I guess I could make sure the diaphragms are sealing correctly, but I'm pretty sure they were when I did it and I figured the mechanics would have seen it if they weren't.