Flyinfool

The starter is right on the other side of the top front point of the left side cover. Circled in red. Please ignore all of the Chrome and shiny paint, this pic is Dons bike not mine....................

Happy Birthday to Skid and the Warden. But Dan, Have you ever forgotten Skids Birthday?

If the tach drops to zero with the engine running bad that is the first clue. The tach is driven from the #2 cyl primary side of the coil. So if the tach drops to zero then the #2 coil is not getting a signal to fire. That means you have electrical gremlins. All of the other issues sure points to a bad ground. It is possible that all of your issues could be a bad ground. I would start there.

FWIW Today was nice out so I went out to the garden shed and the bike was still there. The last time I even saw it was in October of 2016. I stuck in the key and had to cycle the kill switch twice to fill the carbs, pushed the start button and it fired instantly, just like it should. So after the 3 year old battery sitting in the bike outside in the Wisconsin winter for 4.5 months with no charger or maintainer, It had no problem cranking up the bike. Yes I like my good old Flooded Yuasa.

With RTV instead of a gasket I am surprised it even started. You need the gasket thickness to get proper clearance on the starter gear train. I would take a look at the gears to be sure the PO did not grind them down to stop the binding with RTV. I am not sure of the clearances but having no gasket may have been what started the contact with the stator screws.

Or is it possible that the 2 second feature was added during the 83 model year.

The Berrymans is a lot stronger solvent than Seafoam. I suppose it could do damage if you poured it in straight up and then left it sit for a long time. I use Seafoam for normal maintenance and Berrymans for a specific issue. but I do not let the Berrymans sit indefinitely. No it will not eat holes in the bike and garage floor on contact like the aliens blood. Neither is likely to dislodge a chunk of something that is stuck in the float valve. They are both used to clean deposits. For a stuck float I would use the procedure that Skydoc posted. I'll see if I can find it. Or at least open the drain on the stuck carb fully, then with the drain hose in a clean glass container. run the fuel pump a bunch of times and see if you can flush the crud thru. You maya or may not be able to see it in the glass jar, a pretty small piece of crud can cause the float valve to leak. If there is crud getting thru, you may be past due for a new fuel filter. It is also that the old rubber lines are breaking down on the inside from old age.

Also some of the aftermarket ignition modules are much smaller and easier to hide.

MK1s do not need the pressure relief. It is only the MK2s that may or may not need it, I guess that comes down to personal preference and how you like the bike to feel under you.Some say they need it and some say they dont. But the MK1 and MK2 work completely opposite of each other, so the MK1 never needs the anti dive IF you have progressive springs.

So sorry to hear this. Prayers for all of the families involved.

Just looking at the almost stripped screw heads, damaged in the loosening direction, tells me that the stator has been out before. Those screws are really hard to get out so PO may not have used loctite so that it would be easier next time. It should require an impact driver to get them out. Don't forget to examine the magnets in the flywheel real close for metal filing from that worn down screw head.

Since you are rebuilding the forks, I hope you put in new progressive springs. AND if you put in new progressive springs then you do not need the anti dive system any more. Member Skydoc_17 makes a set of Stainless Steel block off plates to cover the holes in the lower forks. You could paint them to match and have a cleaner look and better performance and not having the anti dives sucking off precious braking pressure.

But the Yuasa does not mind that treatment is my point.

Even the service manual says to use loctite on those screws. The factory sure did.

From the pics it looks like the only damage is the one screw head. Should be an easy fix. If the stator still checks out electrically, I would replace all 3 screws with steel hex socket head screws. Now on the other hand, the cracking of the epoxy on the stator could mean that even if it does check out good, it may not be real long for this world.

Dang it............ Why did you have to put this where I could find it.......................

And then there are those of us that tried AGM and went back to a good old Yuasa flooded cell battery. Yes a new AGM has more energy than an old flooded battery. BUT AGM is also more fragile and easy to kill. I tried 2 different AGMs and never got more than 3 years out of one. My Yuasas last me 6-7 years and cost less up front. Yes they crank the engine a bit slower, but it always starts when told to. Granted I am not gentle on a battery. They get to sit outside all winter for 6 months being totally ignored with temps as low as -25F. AGM does not like that, you have to baby them, take them out of bike, bring them into a warm house, put a maintainer on them...........

Your first gen does not have a distributor so no rotor to put a bug on. The 1st gen crank sensors are triggered by the magnets in the flywheel which is on the crankshaft. The TCI has no clue where the engine is without the crank sensor. Yes there are some engines that have a distributor and still pick up the engine location from there, but it is not as accurate as the crank. The distributor has slop in the timing chain, then more slop in the gear mesh between the cam and the distributor. ALL engines that have a coil pack and no distributor have to have 1 or more crank sensors.

I am one of those with a Venture Standard, my bike (and some will say the owner) never had CLASS, just a front and rear Schrader valve to set the pressure with a small hand pump that I keep in the trunk. The CLASS system is also well know to have electrical and air leak issues due to age, You are actually better off without all the extra weight and complexity.

The 25 MPG could be that you are running on 3 cylinders, these bikes run very smooth on 3 cyl. There have been new owners that went years before they found out that they never had 4 cyl running. If a dead cylinder is ignition related then the new ignition and COP will / should fix it. Why spend a lot of time and possibly money trouble shooting something that you are going to replace anyhow. It is also common to get reduced MPG for a while after getting it to run correctly because you tend to USE all the new found power for a while. I can not help you on jetting, that falls under blue smoke and mirrors for me. When my carbs die I may just splurge and convert to EFI.

I had a crank sensor issue on my 96, the wire harness was not routed properly from the factory and the crank sensor wires were just barely touching the dampener. Once it wore thru the insulation then all kinds of weird things happened as it intermittently touched various wires. Took a while to figure that one out to. It just refused to mess up when connected to equipment. Although mine never completely killed the engine, just a quick cough spit and sputter then fine for another week. I sure hope this is the end of your problems, I think you have used up your quota for this trip. Crank sensors have been around since they got rid of points. Something has to tell the computer where the engine is so that it knows when to fire the plugs, even your 1st gen has a pair of crank sensors.

I had a crank sensor issue on my 96, the wire harness was not routed properly from the factory and the crank sensor wires were just barely touching the dampener. Once it wore thru the insulation then all kinds of weird things happened as it intermittently touched various wires. Took a while to figure that one out to. It just refused to mess up when connected to equipment. Although mine never completely killed the engine, just a quick cough spit and sputter then fine for another week. I sure hope this is the end of your problems, I think you have used up your quota for this trip.

If once the RPM gets up it has full power and goes, then fuel delivery to the carbs is not the issue. If it was the pump, filter or a clogged line it would not go fine at high RPM. Ignition issues do not usually pick a mid RPM band to have issues with. It will usually not idle well or fall down at the top end. The only thing left is dirty carbs. You might get lucky with a heavy dose of Seafoam, or Berrymans if it is really bad, in the tank and then run it where it does not like to run to force it to pull the cleaner thru the dirty circuits, then let it sit for a few hours. keep doing this routine to see if it starts to clean up, the only other option is to tear down the carbs and clean them good.

YEA Thanks for doing this. But really we din not meant to break your printer..................... Put it out on the deck and Ill see if we can give it a burial...........

At least Boston is now having fun digging out.