KoboldWrangler

not for the 1200's. it says to warm up the bike, shut it off then check. regardless, i still did a static wet check. two carbs were smack on, the other two were way off. Fixed them aaaaannnnd....nothing changed. checked spark plug boots. Found one of the resistors had a carbon track on it, bypassing the whole resistor. Changed the boot aaaaaaaaand....nothing changed. So, this scenario is very unique to me. I have found the issue for my bike. You see, I wasnt running almost any of the plastics due to them being mostly smashed or cracked, and me wanting to be stupid and do adventure riding with it. Which means the air box is out in the open. From a hunch, while on the highway when it was surging, I decided to cusp the air inlet on the box to help stop the wind shear blowing across it aaaaaaaand...the surging stopped. Removed my hand, surging started again. So, I went back home, reinstalled the fake tank lid, and what do you know, that was it. Turbulent air was causing my lean surge. At least I can ride the bike without the annoying lean surge. Also threw on the messed up side covers. Makes it look like a big Seca~

got an '84 and '86. '84 is a bastard bike -- all 1200 parts on an '88 frame, and the '86 has over 120k miles on it, and was featured at the old Venture Days shows in the 90's.

Ugh. Decided to wet check the carbs with them split. Only got one checked so far and it's 20mm below center, (14mm is stock). I made sure to tap on the carb and repeatedly prime the fuel pump to ensure the level is accurate. It's so weird cause the floats are set right at 28.5mm. this would explain why it's running lean I suppose. I'll get them reset and report back.

Yep, thats me on there as well. FB is nice for quick responses, but rarely does it ever net a quality response. nope, running stock 1300 carbs as the 1200 carbs were beyond trashed. I found this comparison chart, and both the '84 and '86 venture use the same pilot jet (37.5), only the main jet changed. (https://web.archive.org/web/20130904201220/http://www.bergall.org/temp/venture/venture-carb-part-differences.html) ill check and maybe seal the boots on the air box. i know they can be easily rotated in the box. I dont think itd affect fuel ratio, but its worth checking. When looking up what lean surge is, it matches exactly what my bike is doing -- "Lean surge is typically related to a lean mixture and occurs when cruising along at steady state speeds with small throttle openings. You can actually feel the bike pull and then pause, pull and pause..." I am leaning towards it being the idle air screws. theyre closer to 3 turns than 2.75, and i know you cant really go much past 4 before they come out. I have looked at the gunson colortune, but not only are they getting hard to find, they are pricey as well... not sure on fuel consumption -- i havent really ridden it much as i just got it all together, and the lean surge bothers the shit outta me when im on the expressway.

So, got an interesting issue I am trying to tackle. Bike is an '84 xvz1200 with 1300 carbs (1200 carbs were beyond trashed). Got the bike running beautifully, idles smoothly, starts right up, accelerates like a freight train...accept when I am cruising at or above 55mph, I've got a real bad lean surge. Carbs are clean as a whistle inside, float heights were set dry (28.5mm, and checked alternate height method from top of jet block to float, which is 16mm), idle air screws are 2.75 turns -- each cylinder responds nicely to the idle drop test, diaphragms are not torn, valves adjusted, coils and TCI were replaced with other known good ones, and the tank, filter, and pump are clean and flowing well. Seeing as this is only at a small throttle input, should I turn the air screws in or out? (edit: updated post to reflect me learning of lean surge)

Hello-- I finished parting out a failed cafe racer 1300 venture to hopefully patch together my bastard child 1200. I was going to swap the engine out on mine from the 12 to the 13, however, after the nightmare i went through to get the 13 engine out, I think I may just stick with the 12 until 2nd gear disappears. Thanks to the previous owner, the 1200 carbs are essentially unusable (destroyed idle air screw, all pilot jets are beyond seized and stripped). Assuming I can get the 1300 carbs cleaned up, can I swap them onto the 1200 motor without rejetting? Will I need to swap intake boots?

Well that answers another question of mine -- on the back where it should say venture royale, someone replaced it with VTS. I wish i had a name of the owner back in the day that I could associate with this bike, maybe figure out if they are still around or not. Cool to hear that they were sponsored by yamaha as well.

Hello-- First question, what was v-daze? I assume it was a bike show that was mainly aimed at the venture bikes? I was reading up on the tugs intake system, when I saw someone mention v-daze. I own an '88 1300, and it was hand pinstriped by who someone in the pinstripe community thinks is called scarecrow, at one of the v-daze events. I didnt make the connection until I saw mention of it here. Does anyone have any film scans of the v-daze shows from either 89 or 95? The log book I got with the bike has a mention of getting an award at "the show", and I think itd be cool to see of pic of the bike from way back in the day.

Sorry for the sporadic posts. been pulling my hair out over this. I think i finally solved it. The cylinder that was dead at idle had a stuck idle jet in the jet block. I had used guitar wire to ensure the jet was open, ultra sonic'd it multiple times, and used compressed air trying to get it cleared out, with no luck. I took the best fitting screwdriver I had, sharpened it and managed to get the idle free without too much damage. Looking at the jet it was indeed clear, but when i stuck everything in the cleaner, black crap started oozing out of the jet block from the idle jet hole. Guess there was something in there that evaded all my attempts to get clean. I am still picking up the parts bike -- i have a bastard child '84 xvz12 that is in desperate need of parts (xvz1200 everything mounted to a 1300 frame, and is in very rough shape.) I plan on getting offroad-esque tires for it, and will be taking it on the KAT next year with my brother and the maxim he picked up.

is there a good source or person on the forum that offers carb rebuild services?

They are 100% seated

nope. i do my best to reuse old brass if i can. None of my compression gauges will screw in or push in due to the nature of the engine. Prolly will look at getting another gauge soon. I tried trickling gas into the carb while at idle. No change. I am starting to doubt this is a fueling issue. update. replaced plugs and boots. no change. took the carbs back off, cleaned the right two carbs again, sealed any potential cracks in the intake boots, replaced boot screws, aaaaand...front right now consistently idles, but the rear right just refuses to idle. checking with a temp gun shows a 175*F+ difference between the rear right, and all the other headers. (also, one of the PO cracked both heads by using too long of screws on the front left and rear right upper intake boot bolt holes...found this out when oil started pouring out the bolt holes.) Something else I noticed -- i had to replace some of the coolant o rings on the front of the motor, and while letting the bike idle, theres what appears to be smoke coming out of the radiator. something tells me that this bike has a blown head gasket, and its game over for this motor. There is someone near me that has a supposedly good 1300 motor, and the odometer says 7232 miles, but that scares me that it might have 107232 miles -- mines the same way, saying 9000 miles, but the included logs show 109 miles. While it was idling (yes, i know cv's dont run right without the air box) I was blipping the throttle, and noticed that the rear right has a weaker vacuum signal than the rest, resulting in the movement in the slide to be delayed. Yes, all diaphragms and o rings were replaced as well... I recorded a short video kinda showing the late moving slide, and the smoke coming out of the rad. Thoughts?

edit: went back out to check for spark, its not a bright blue, but a meh purple orange color.

Hello-- Picked up this '88 1300, 109k miles. It had been sitting for about 6 years before I got it. I'm currently going through the motions of getting it road worthy again -- calipers, slave, carbs, etc and I am currently fighting the two right side carbs. Unfortunately there was gas left in the carbs, which goo'd up the lower quarter of them, but thankfully it wasnt too bad (unlike the 1200 i also picked up...). All the carbs received ~1hr ultrasonic bath individually consisting of hot water, dawn grease soap, and simple green max. Came out nice, used 100psi of air to blow out all the passage ways, replaced o rings, gaskets, diaphragms, and put them back together. There was only one pilot jet which I could not remove due to it stripping out. The rubber plugs are still snug in the jet blocks, but they are on my list of parts to change. I for the life of me cannot get the bike to consistently idle on the right two cylinders. Sometimes, not often, it will idle on all 4, but more often than not, the idle will be low, and you can pull the right two side plugs and the idle wont change. I've had the carbs apart multiple times, and cannot get a different result. When I pull plugs, they will audibly be snapping, and the one time i had a spare plug hooked up, it had a scarily bright blue spark. Plugs when pulled will also be wet. I will be replacing spark plug boots tomorrow as a maintenance item, and will report if anything changes with that. Is there something I am overlooking? Anything I should check? Also, is there an easy way to remove / drill out the stuck pilot jet?