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Saturday, August 26, 2006

New Bike?

I spent some time today playing with the carburetors. I tried syncing them and found that I could only get it close as the idle was running very rough. After getting it close, I played with the mixture screws on each carburetor. The front carb was easy and set at five (5) turns out. The rear carb was a bitch to get a screw driver on the mixture screw. I basically had to set it by ear as I couldn't keep the screw driver on the screw to be able to count the turns. In any event, I got it done and then changed the oil. I went back to Castrol 20W50 Semi Synthetic. The full synthetic just didn't feel right. The semi Synthetic feels a little smoother shifting. I took the bike for a test ride and found that she will do 70 mph in 4th gear. 5th gear is now just a bonus to get up to the tom mark.

(All vehicle test riding was conducted on a closed track by a professional driver)

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

No Good Deed...

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

I hear this saying a lot lately, but only recently found it to be true. I found that there was a new Vision owner in the area who was having trouble getting his bike to run. I made contact with him and went to see him with a spare set of carburetors and some other miscellaneous parts. I left my house with the parts and a small toolbox strapped to the back of my Vision and took the most direct route to get there... Straight up Route 220.



When I got to Phil's house, I motored into the driveway and as my bike was idling, before I hit the engine shut off switch, I could hear a ticking sound coming from the left side of the engine. "CRAP!" was about all I could think to say. It was only about 3,000 to 4,000 miles ago that I fixed the dreaded Starter Clutch. When I did fix the Starter Clutch, I had to replace the Rotor and Starter Clutch with the ones from my spare engine. When I did this, It appeared that the well known "Starter Clutch Repair" had already been done to the new parts. So, I put it all back together and it all worked great. It wasn't until later on that I realized, what I thought was longer bolts through the Starter Clutch, were actually just stock bolts. Now, I believe that those wonderful stock bolts have backed themselves out again and I am going to have to do the entire Starter Clutch repair all over again.



On to Phil's bike, we took the used carburetors and bolted them on without much problem. His battery was dead, so we had to jump his bike off his Dad's 4Wheeler. Several turns of the engine and it just would not start. Checked that the spark plugs and caps are all connected, check fuel and vacuum lines, all looked good. One last hit of the starter button and it started up and sounded good. This was the first time Phil has heard his bike run. I know it had to be is good feeling for him. A new battery for Phil and the bike charges good. Phil has been working with the carburetor, setting the air/fuel mixture screws and adjusting the sync between carburetors and it sounds like Phil has a pretty decent bike.


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