Fixed off idle skip

[Venturous Randy]

For a while now have had a skip at very light throttle, such as running at 40 mph on flat ground in 5th gear. And, as soon as I gave it any throttle, the skip went away. I have been thru the carbs, cleaned the pilot jets, synced them and replaced the plugs. This past week, I replaced the carb rubber manifold boots the carbs set on. Mine did have some obvious external cracks and the ones I used came off an 86 engine that I have and they look very good. Did not help a bit, ran exactly the same way.

Yesterday morning I decided to remove all the YICS hoses and plug them. The two outer ones are easy to get off, but the two inner ones are hard to get to. I pulled one lose with a long pair of needle nose pliers, but on the other one, when I pulled it with the pliers, it tore into. This would have been easy with the carbs off, but I have already had the carbs off several times and I am tired of doing that.

After I got the plugs on tight, I decided to replace the spark plugs again as I wanted to start fresh and to be able to try to get a reading on what the plugs looked like anyway. My son suggested I try the bike before I did anything else, but I did not want to get the engine hot. Well, when I pulled the back left cap off the plug, it came off the wire. Now these wires and caps were replaced a couple of years ago, so I did not expect them to be a problem. When I looked into the cap where the wire goes, there was green corrosion on the screw that screws into the wire. I cleaned it good and cut about a half inch off the wire and screwed it back together as far as it would go. It looked like the cap had not been screwed in good. I checked the other three caps and they looked good.

I double checked the sync on the carbs and they were off some, so I adjusted them. I took the bike for a ride and it is running very good with no off idle skip. I am not sure whether the plugging of the YICS system was the problem or the cap problem, but at least it is running good again.

RandyA

[Gearhead]

Hmmm, my first reaction was, go with the obvious, it was the bad cap, except that hi-side ignition problems usually get worse with more throttle, not better...

 

Congrats anyway!

 

Jeremy