V7Goose

I have seen this once before. If the pressure plate doesn't get properly seated the teeth bind up and the clutch lever won't move at all. 10 minute fix. Goose

It's Not the fuel filter- that restricts gas flow and causes the pump to click longer. A clogged filter may have killed your pump, but that is a different issue. If your pump is not clicking after sitting for a day or more, it is bad. The 42s is the most common replacement, but it is not the best choice. It does not have the positive fuel cutoff of the stock pump. See my parts alternative thread in the tech library for a better choice. Goose

I am using an android smart phone to access the site since I am back in Texas's again trying to move more stuff. I don't find the map particularly awkward to use, but it did take some playing around to figure out what all is there. The toughest part has just been hitting the little zoom and position buttons on this little screen. But I have only had this phone for about a month, so I am still learning it too. Goose

This is great Don. Thanx! One question- how do you find this other than the link in this thread? Goose

Since you are only looking for a change in engine speed, any kind of tach and pickup is fine. It doesn't even matter if it displays the correct rpm. Goose

First let me point out that this thread is from three years ago, so no point in commenting on the OP. Second, let me clarify that these are NOT freeze plugs. A freeze plug is designed to be pushed out by expanding ice before the block breaks. The cylinder jacket drain plugs on this engine are physically held in place by the fake fins, so they can never be pushed out. And they are cheap to buy and easy to replace. Goose

A Tach is useful for many things, but not much for sync. It does let you set proper idle speed, but that's is not too important for a sync. To sync the carbs you need to set all VACUUM readings equal, regardless of RPM. Goose

Put a little oil on the gasket before you install the new filter, then just be sure you do not tighten it more than 1/4 turn past where it first touches, and you will never need a wrench. Goose

It never gets plugged on its own- plugging is how you disable the AIS. There are two AIS valves that control when air is allowed into the headers. The valve for the rear cylinders is near the frame behind your right foot, and the front valve is behind the radiator. They are controlled by the two vacuum lines connected to the intake boots. The first clue that someone has mucked with your AIS is if those vacuum lines have been removed and there are caps on all four nipples. Beyond removing the vacuum lines, the intake hose to the valve will be plugged with a stopper, or the valve completely removed. Goose

The AIS is Air Induction System. It simply allows fresh air to be sucked into the header pipe to finish burning all the gas before it gets blown out the muffler. It is pretty much the same thing as someone picking up the road apples behind a horse in a parade. If your bike is not running right, the excess unburned gas can cause popping on deceleration (the fresh air causes an explosion if there is too much gas in the pipe), and some folks just don't care or don't believe that there is something wrong with their bike, so they prefer to disconnect the AIS to just hide the problem instead of fixing. the bike. I want to stress that this bike in stock condition will NOT pop on deceleration unless something is wrong with it. Goose

Rotten egg smell from an engine with catalytic converter is caused by too rich, but this bike does not have one. Without a catalyst the mixture will affect the smell some, but not to the "stink" level. Coolant or oil is the most likely cause for a strange smell. If you have the AIS plugged you are just polluting the air for all of us for no reason - there is absolutely ZERO benefit to either you or your bike! Good luck getting it figured out. Goose

I do mine with every scheduled maintenance, but it is not really needed that often. If it hasn't been done in a while I'd certainly do it now. And also be sure the bike is pulling 10" Hg at 1,000 RPM ; anything less indicates one or more pilot jets need to be cleaned (assuming compression is good and all cylinders are running right). The lower the vacuum the more dirty your carbs are. Once you know it is all synced and running good, start occasionally touching the side of your tank lightly with your fingertips while cruising to get used to the normal vibration level. This is most effective when the tank is less than half full. Any increase in vibration indicates the carbs probably need to be synced or something is affecting clean burn in one or more cylinders. If you get down to the Ruidoso area in southern New Mexico stop by and we can always check things out. Goose

I cannot say if that mechanic is knowledgeable or truthful, but I CAN tell you of my own experiences: I have done valve checks on MANY 2nd gen bikes, including engines right at the recommended mile check and others that had gone many many miles past, and not one single engine did not need at least one shim changed. Few were real bad, but still out of spec. I wouldn't be surprised to see an engine here or there that all checked good, but if someone started saying that none of them ever needed shims, I'd look to a different shop. My recommendation is to get them checked on time, and make sure you absolutely trust the mechanic. Best is to find someone to help you do it yourself - you will learn a lot and have total peace of mind about it when the job is done. Goose

Actually, I do not find this necessary at all. I have changed the plugs and lost no more than about a thimble-full of coolant. Just screw an old spark plug in the existing plug and quickly put your thumb over the hole as you pull it out. Then grab the new plug and just pop it in as soon as you pull your thumb away. Much quicker to do than to write about it. But if you haven't changed your coolant in the past five years, then this is the ideal time to do that too. Good luck, Goose

Man-o-man, I had forgotten how spoiled I was being able to ride just about every day of the year in Texas. Heck, even when I lived in Omaha I still rode all winter long with the hack. But the new place in the mountains, at over 7,000 feet, just ain't gonna work for that - I can see that the bikes will be in storage for multiple months every winter. Not only have we had snow on the ground continually since early December, but even when the roads clear off there is a twist in the dirt road leading to our place that runs down through a mostly dry creek and up a very steep hill just before our property - this section is totally shaded with huge Ponderosa pines and thick junipers, so the sun only sees the road less than an hour a day, and that hill stays packed with snow and ice constantly. Even when the rest of the road is dry and dusty, it is hard to find an exposed track up that hill. Four wheel drive is often an absolute necessity to get through there, especially if you do not keep the momentum up when turning through the bottom of the creek bed! Even with the remote location and snows, no time for cabin fever this year - in fact there is so much to do with moving and all that I have had a very hard time just trying to occasionally scan this forum and a few others to keep in touch. So my apologies if anyone has been looking for me or wanted some input on a tech issue. I've been mostly out of touch, but NOT deliberately ignoring you. If you want my input or ideas, best bet is to PM or email me - it may take several days for me to see it, but I'll do my best to respond. Ride safe (weather permitting) and keep warm! Goose

I have no idea what bike you have, but if i understood your post correctly, then it sounds like you have some clogged pilot jets. A CV carb runs primarily off the pilot jets anywhere in the first 1/4 throttle , and they still provide significant amounts of fuel in conjunction with the main jets up past 1/2 throttle. Only above 1/2 do the main jets provide enough fuel to make the additional fuel from the pilot jets mostly insignificant. And a CV carb does not use an accelerator pump to overcome the initial rush of air when opening the slides (which pulls the needle out of the main jets), so there is an inherent lag in how fast the main jet fuel jumps in the mix. The slides are deliberately delayed on the first throttle twist, and the pilot jets MUST be able to supply the additional fuel needed from the opened butterfly valves until the revs climb enough to support the opening slides. So what is going on is that most likely your idle adjustment is cranked up to allow some fuel through the mains at idle to compensate for your plugged primaries. It will seem to run OK, but not actually near as good as it will with clean carbs (and you will have that delay you described). You can verify this by checking the vacuum level at idle - if the engine is not pulling 10" Hg, then either the engine is worn or the butterflies in the carbs are being held too far open. Goose

Yeah, we closed on the 14th of this month. Started the move process - first load taken out when we went for closing. We spent a week there and loved it so much we almost just decided to abandon everything in Texas so we didn't have to leave the new place!! But that did seem a bit extreme, so we are currently back in Texas loading up for another part of the move - should be heading back to the mountains sometime this week. We'll spend the month of December in New Mexico, then come back to do the major part of the move with a big rental van in early January. We got a LOT of stuff, so this moving thing is a real PItA! Not sure how we are gonna muscle the big furniture and electronics - probably have to hire some day laborers.... Anybody want to buy a big house in North Texas?

If your lights indicate that the cruse remains set as the speed drops (instead of just switching off suddenly before the speed drops), then the problem is either a vacuum issue or cable that needs to be lubed. Most likely an old vacuum line between the pump behind the right lower cowling and the actuator behind the left lower cowling. Could also be just a bad vacuum pump. Goose

A brake system is a semi-sealed system. There is a pleated rubber cover on top of the fluid in the master cylinder, and as fluid is pushed down into the line towards the slave, air is sucked in on top of that rubber cover. As the pads wear down, the slave pistons must stay further and further out to keep them close to the rotor, so this requires more fluid from the master to move down into the system, lowering the level. A brake system is designed to never run too low on fluid before all the pads in the same system are completely worn out. This is why you should NEVER add fluid unless you have a leak. Nothing really retracts the slave pistons when you take your foot off the brake - just the pressure from the rotor pushes the pads back until they just barely clear the surface. Ordinarily you do not need to open anything or bleed fluid to replace the pads. When you push the pistons back into the slave, the fluid is simply pushed back up to the master. So if you had one piston pushing another out as you tried to push it in, THAT is your problem. That never happens in a properly working system. Either the system is too full (could not be unless someone added fluid when the pads were not new), or there is a problem in the master cylinder that is preventing the fluid from getting pushed back into it. Goose

No, the pads will not "wear in". Without knowing what work you did and how, it is unlikely that I can tell you what is wrong. If you had the wheel off, maybe you put the spacer in on the wrong side of the caliper bracket? If you took the caliper off the bracket, maybe you cross threaded one of the bolts and it is not properly tightened, allowing the caliper to be crooked? Maybe there is a lot of old crud built up around the slave pistons, keeping them from easily moving back into the cylinder and taking pressure off the pads? Maybe you didn't get all the pistons properly compressed back into the slave cylinder at all? Maybe you added fluid to your brake system while the old pads were still in there (this should almost NEVER be done!), resulting in an over-full master cylinder now after you compressed the pistons to allow room for the new pads? Maybe your brake pedal is hanging up? Can't think of any other typical problems that could generally cause this after a pad change... Goose

First, this is normal. You can download the shop manual from the tech library and it will have all the specs. I do not know what indication you had for "drops a cylinder or two", but it is not likely that it was caused by dirty carbs. The only way the carbs could have contributed to that was if there were large chunks of stuff floating around in there that just occasionally got stick in the jets, then fell out when the engine was stopped. This is HIGHLY unlikely. Plugged jets are very common, but they do not plug and unplug. A better possibility is a clogged fuel filter, or even a failing fuel pump. Secondly, please do not cross-post the same question or information in multiple threads - this is very irritating for those who either want to help or are interested in following the subject, as you get different conversations and ideas that really should be kept together (I have deleted your other thread to prevent this).

Ride that thing over here to DFW and we'll get it all sorted out... Goose

Dry boiling point is the temp where you get a problem with fresh fluid. Wet boiling point is where the problems starts after the fluid has absorbed water. The boiling point is a safety issue, it has nothing to do with "performance", at least not in the way I define the term. All fluids will "perform" just fine when below the boiling point, and when the system reaches the boiling point, your brakes are simply gone until they cool off. Old brake fluid generally does not give you any hint that it is bad until your brakes suddenly disappear one day from heavy use. The dry boiling point of any fluid (even DOT3) is just dandy, and you will NEVER have any problems at all if you simply change your fluid at the specified intervals. But the higher wet boiling points of DOT4 provide a margin of safety if you neglect your scheduled maintenance or use contaminated fluid. And THAT is exactly why they created DOT4 in the first place, because most people NEVER change their brake fluids, especially in passenger cars and light trucks. Even people who know something about it tend to just ignore this basic maintenance. I am as guilty of this as most people for my cages - I have a 19 year old truck that has NEVER had the fluid changed! The truck rarely gets used, so it is easy to never think about it. But I am glad this thread came along, 'cause now that I am getting ready to move and the truck will be getting some really heavy loads and long 10 hour days on the highway, I'm damned sure gonna change that fluid in the next couple of weeks! And it doesn't matter to me if the spec for it calls for DOT3 or DOT4 - it will get the cheapest DOT4 fluid on the shelf at the discount auto parts store I normally use. So the bottom line for me is simply this - one should always change their brake fluid regularly, at least within the specified schedule for the vehicle. And any DOT4 rated fluid is just peachy-keen for any and all cars, light trucks, and motorcycles that do not specify DOT5 (which is not compatible with DOT4, so they cannot be mixed or the systems easily converted safely). Ride safe, Goose

Most of the relevant information has already been given by others, so I'll just recap - MOST important is to CHANGE YOUR BRAKE AND CLUTCH FLUID REGULARLY! The manual specifies every two years, but it seems that few people actually do it - ever. ALL glycol fluids absorb water from the air. ANY brownish color to the fluid at all shows it has a large content of water - the darker it is, the more water there is. In the brake system, this comes through the pores in the rubber lines as well as the vent in the master cylinder. The more you use it, the faster is sucks up moisture (from the constant compression, flexing of the lines, and air getting sucked into the vent). This is why your clutch fluid gets brown much faster than your brake fluids. Brakes generate a huge amount of heat under heavy use, and this is transmitted directly through the pads to the slave cylinder pistons and into the fluid. If there is significant moisture in the fluid, it boils into vapor, which is highly compressible (just like air). This means when you step on the brakes it just squeezes the vapor together a bit but never reaches the pads. After the fluid cools, all seems fine again. Flush the system with fresh DOT4 fluid and your problem is solved. You should always use a new sealed can of fluid, even if you had a lot left over from your last brake service several years ago - once the seal is broken on the can, it will begin absorbing moisture as it ages on the shelf. If you are cheap like me and really hate to throw away the remaining new fluid, you can seal the can lid with hot-melt glue - that generally keeps it fresh. (This trick also works perfectly for any tube of glue, such as tire patch solvent.) The glue seals the cap perfectly, but is still very easy to scrape off when you want to open it again. In my personal opinion, there is absolutely no significant added value from DOT5.1. DOT4 is all you ever need in the brakes if you change it at the recommended interval, and in the clutch, DOT3 is just fine if you do not happen to have DOT4 on hand. I'd much rather have fresh DOT3 in any system than really old DOT4! And the wet clutch combined with the minor heat transfer available to the clutch slave cylinder (will never get hotter than the engine oil) means that DOT3 wet boiling point is never going to be an issue. But the bike spec is still for DOT4, so that is the preferred fluid, even in the clutch.

The bike either lost voltage (battery very low and dropped to nil when trying to start it or bad connections), or you have a blown backup fuse. Goose