Fresh meat!

[Spargett]

Mine was about that dirty. Lots of carb cleaner and scraping later, I got it clean as a whistle. Most the gunk had hardened into a concrete sort of mineral. Might want to remove the o-ring and soak the thing in parts(carb) cleaner before going at it. You'll prob need to order the little o-ring (91304-259-010) inside as well. Almost no gasket kits include it. I also discovered that I was missing the washer that sits outside of the oil filter, sheez!

Here's the oil filter as removed from the bike. Doesn't look too gunky. I mean, I think. I don't have any perspective on this other than other folks who have described this thing being really gunked up when they pulled it.

[Loudo]

Received my new "cush clutch" assembly that emo sold me...that thing looks like it should have been headed for the Boeing Aerospace shop instead of my house. Very, very nice. Struggled a little bit to get the clutch lifter rod all the way in to seat against the ball bearing. Seems there's a tiny step the end didn't want to jump over at the far end. I experimented with fishing narrow dowels and wires in there with the rod until I was able to get the end to jump into the hole where it belonged. A bit of a throughbred stud farm sort of deal. Easier than disassembling the right side crankcase again.

When I originally disassembled the left side innards, I got to the lock nut on the oil filter and did not feel like hammering on it with a chisel so I looked at other options first. I grabbed some big Plumb wrenches and found that the open end of a 1-1/4" wrench fit nicely around the somewhat flattened sides of the nut and I removed it. Used the wrench for assembly also...worked good. Also replaced the shift shaft oil seal, seemed to have better success than last time. I had smoothed and polished the seat surface with a Dremel tool since there was a little harm around the rim of the recess.

With everything buttoned back up, I filled it with oil, adjusted the clutch and took the bike outside since there was some brief sunny weather between hourly rain and snow storms. Started right up, idled nicely at 2/3 choke, I just let it warm up nice and steady for a couple minutes. Both cylinders firing this time, thank goodness. Pushed it off the stand, clutch was working nice. Ran around the property for about ten minutes, no leaks I could find...finally! No odd smoke either.

Still having trouble finding neutral consistently. Tried to coast along in first quite a few times trying to get it in neutral before stopping but it very much wanted to shift into second instead no matter how gentle I was trying to be. I was successful once or twice though...maybe I just need more practice to get the right feel.

Turned my attention to the funky light switch...I crafted a homemade insulator piece based on jleeweb's advice and got it back together successfully (thanks, Lee). It's still not right. At least I can get my headlight to turn on, but only with the switch halfway between the top and middle position. It won't stay there while on the road, I'd be messing with it constantly. I'm looking for a new switch as I can't tell exactly what the problem is.

Overall, other than the switch I'm very happy with the way the bike is running mechanically.

[Loudo]

I haven't posted anything under this thread for awhile but the work done on the bike has been the subject of questions I"ve posed in other areas of the forum. Since I sorted out the headlight issue yesterday, I decided to fire up the bike for some regular exercise. Didn't want to start, which was unusual and concerning. Perhaps a bit of the same thing that happened last week which was that only the right side was running and fuel was dripping from the header/muffler connection on the left side. I pulled and cleaned up both plugs, tried again. Finally got it to keep running, it was a little ragged. I noted that when I placed my hand at the end of the muffler right side, there was a strong exhaust pulse whereas the left side was not as strong. After it got warmed up it seemed clear both cylinders were working properly but the exhaust pulse was still much stronger on the right side than the left. Also on the left side during warmup there was some smoke..white or blue (?) not black. Is this imbalance a sign of something more sinister like lack of compression on the left side or just something to be concerned about if there's other wrong stuff happening? I checked the plugs for spark a few days ago and there was spark on both sides though the right side seemed stronger. After it 's warmed up everything seems good, I can even get it into neutral consistently by paying attention to my speed when coming to a stop, but this balky starting isn't good. I'm taking it out on the road for its first real venture this week, haven't even seen gears 3 and 4 yet.

Thinking about the smoke again, I remember quite a bit coming from the header/muffler connection when it was warming up. I'm guessing there's a possibility this was due to the burning off of an accumulation of fuel there when the left side wasn't running earlier.

In any event, I bought a new helmet on Saturday. The field of vision is much better than that provided by my previous helmet purchased in 1983.

[Loudo]

Since I was less than impressed with yesterday's starting performance, I drug the bike out after work today and fired it up. Started right away and idled fine...this is good. After a minute I noticed fuel once again dripping from the left side header/muffler connection. This is bad. I shut it off and by alternately removing the spark plug wires and restarting discovered that indeed only the right side is firing.

So I wheeled it into the garage for a spark check, right side was good and left side was weak. In fact, the spark that was there was not across the gap but dancing around the lower vicinity of the plug head. I took that plug and placed it in the right side plug wire and it was bad there also. So I'm thinking, "bad plug" though the plug is almost new. I got out a spare plug, put everything back together and went out to fire it up. Started fine, but I only have intermittent firing on the left side.

So it's back to the drawing board for some troubleshooting. I note the presence of gas because it's dripping out unburned but perhaps I should go through a whole carb thin just to be sure some crap didn't find its way into a tiny passage. I'm also looking harder at the spark situation, I think there's room for improvement there.

Kind of discouraging. On a bright note, the right side seems to running perfectly!

[Loudo]

An amendment to my post of a few minutes ago....I don't know what the hell I'm doin', but I jerked the left side plug wire from its socket and cut 1/4" off of it and rei-inserted it into the socket. Plugged in the spark plug, checked for spark, nice and fat. Took it outside, started and ran. In fact, I had neglected to replace the right side plug wire on the plug so I know the left side is OK now. However, the exhaust pulse is still not as strong as the right side. Any opinions as to whether or not this is anything to be worried about?

I HAVE to get this thing on the road this week to do a more thorough checkout.

[Loudo]

The weather was nice this morning and I live less than a mile from work so I got on all my gear to ride the bike to work for a little shakeout cruise. Started and idled fine, ran great. Could only get up into third gear briefly because at that point my speed on these residential streets put me in danger of attention from the local PD, something I avoid and especially since these local cops are my co-workers since we work for the same small town.

I'll get it out onto the state route at lunchtime to see if 4th gear is working ok. :0

[Loudo]

Went for a 9 mile ride at lunch, about a half hour of riding. Took it up to 50 on the state route, all the gears seem fine. After the ride, there were a few drops of oil here and there. Of more concern, the centerstand was coated with oil and there were signs of oil being lightly sprayed onto the right side of the rear wheel hub. I'm wondering if the chain is throwing this oil around or if it is leaking from somewhere and the wind at speed is driving it onto these other surfaces.

I don't know what I'd do with myself if I didn't have a new problem to troubleshoot.

If anybody cares to comment about my earlier question concerning the imbalance of exhaust pulse between the two mufflers, don't hold back!