Almost right again

I gave the jets another clean and took it out yesterday for a quick run, she went pretty well and started second kick which surprised me, I ended up doing around 25kms and the only hiccup was when going around a corner and perhaps not selecting the right gear, giving it some out of the corner and a couple of times she complained a little by jumping and missing but would soon recover and away we'd go. I'm going to leave it alone now and see how it goes, I'll start riding into work again on the days the weather is favorable and take on the next problem as it arises.

cough splutter burp

I got to look into the starting and idling problems over the weekend, I have a good spark and I know the fuel is getting there as the plug is fouling, the idle is OK but just dies after a minute or two, unless I feather the throttle, I thought Id throw in the old idle jet from the smaller carb I had on it originally, It did idle better and longer but still died. I went for a short ride up the road and she began to stutter and died, I got a few bursts of life trying to get going again, but I eventually rolled/pushed it back the 500m back home, it was for this reason I decided to go up the hill and not down it.
I got back to the shed and decided to give her a birthday since I was most likely going to pull the carb out anyway, I changed the gear oil, I checked and cleaned the plug, it was a little browner than it was after the plug chop, but I did notice that the little nipple on the end was loose? a possible cause? I re-torqued the cylinder head nuts too, which did seem a little loose to me, there was a small leak at the base of the head, another likely cause of the starting problem, low compression.
I disconnected the carb and pulled it down, I found no obvious blockages, there was some crap below the filter screen though, I blew out all the jets and holes as best I could and put it all back together. I did the same run up the hill and it ran a little better, still feels like there is a fuel delivery issue, just seemed to miss every now and then and the acceleration was lacking towards the top of the range 80kmph and up, getting to eighty wasn't a problem, she pulled hard through the gears. I got back and the first thing I did was pull the plug, it was clean as a whistle, it's a new plug, this worries me a bit that I might be a bit lean It still wont idle for long so I set about adjusting the throttle cable nipple along about 3-4mm to open the slide just a small bit at idle and give me some room for idle adjustment, this seemed to work and the idle problem seemed done with. I ran out of daylight so decided to call it a day until the morning.
I checked the weather and decided to ride the Sprint to work, it started after four kicks, OK since it was a cold frosty morning, idle was a tad fast but I would adjust that when the engine was warm. I rode out and down toward town, same running issues as yesterday, so I turned around in case she died and I didn't feel like pushing it home up the hill first thing Monday morning, It didn't stop but I had to keep the revs up and the clutch grabbing to turn around, I lifted the front wheel twice turning around, once home I shut it off and will look at it when I get home, I then proceeded to start the GT200 take off and perform a rear wheel spin 180 degrees and layed it down on the cold wet soft ground.....no harm done but would've looked pretty funny, note to self. Don't give it too much on the wet grass until you get going....

Bit quiet

Sorry, just haven't had the time or the weather to do anything of late, I pulled and cleaned out the jets, tidied up the plug, I have gone back to reset the carb, now I just need to get a short ride in to warm it up and fine tune it, I want to sort the idle issue out, got a good spark and fuel supply is good.
Will get to it in the next few days, I want to take it down to the club meet in Geelong in a couple of weeks, give it a good hit out.

Another milestone problem.

It was a good weekend for riding, cold but dry, I did another fuel usage test and came out with 25.3 kms per litre, I also found out that my tank only holds about 6 litres? sure it should be 7.7, I almost ran out of juice, the level was about an inch above the bottom and when I topped up I put 5.5 in.
On the way home I have a reasonable hill long and continuous grade and I sat on 80 the whole way up, at the top I clutched in and cut the engine and pulled over to have a look at the plug, not as brown as normal, but more of a grey colour, dry and clean. This is where the problem started, I put the plug back in and kicked it into life, she's been a 2-3 kick start since being back in one piece, three this time from a hot start, odd. I had only 200 metres to home so I putted back, In the property I was down to second and just bleeping it to roll round to the shed, I noticed it was running rough.
This morning I must have kicked it 10 times before I got a response, another 3-4 before she started and there was something not right, like she was firing out of whack, mostly running OK but every so often it would skip and be a louder, I didn't have time to go any further into it because I had to leave for work. So I'll have a play when I get a chance, I think the cause may be from when I cut the engine I held the kill switch in for a bit and this may still be contacting while the vibration of the idle shakes the crap out of the bike. It's been running fine and this is the only thing that has been different.

The milestone was 5000kms on the clock, 600 on the new kit, I'm half expecting that she's angling to get back in the shed since it's getting colder, she's not a morning bike for sure.

Positives and Negatives

Another decent weekend of riding, 123 kms and a good chance to check the fuel consumption, I used 4.5 litres over the two days and an outcome of 27.2 km per litre seems ok to me. Still never really opened her up further than 80 on the clock, and about half throttle, riding was mostly around town with some open road stuff as well, a couple of hills. The power comparison to before the kit still surprises me, this brings the new kit kms up to approx. 445 and just shy of 4850kms in total.
I had noticed a rattle, or more of a vibration, and it was getting worse, I decided to go down to the lake to stretch my legs, check the tank and the time and I went to pull her up onto the stand and it was all over the place, I got down to see that on the left hand side the nuts holding the stand bracket on had vibrated loose and fallen off, the bracket was wedged in there behind the stand but as I was reaching the high end of the rev range on each gear she was screaming at me, I pulled the bracket and the bolts out and rode up to the local hardware, replaced the nuts and spring washers in the carpark, I needed the guy from the shop to hold the scooter for me to get the bolts in place and I was good to go, no more noise, it was nice.
Once home I topped up the fuel, checked the plug, it looked fine, and decided to do a quick nut and bolt check, I'm glad I did. All the hub and rim nuts were tight, but the back wheel had some play in it, I tried to get the pin out but the nut had turned enough that I had to break the pin off and tighten the nut slightly to get it out. Sheeesh......
I did the nut up with the strength of five men, well as tight as I could possibly do it, put the biggest split pin that I could fit in there, the one I had was taken out was only slightly smaller and will now do a check on it every time I get on it

So far so good.

Firstly here's the photo of the fuel cap screw that I butchered up out of a hex head bolt, the standard rubber handle screws nicely onto it, I have a couple of washers and a nut if I get into trouble with it.

Well the weekend bought much happiness and confidence is growing in my engine work. I had an hour or so spare both days and the autumn weather was perfect for a ride, over the two days I managed 100 kms, bringing the kms on the new cylinder up to just under 300kms, all the rattles are gone, except the ones that were there before the engine was dropped, I only pushed it to 80kmph max. but could feel that it had plenty left, the power at gear changes is surprising and I've found myself startled at times and have reminded myself to hang on a bit better. This morning I rode to the end of the driveway and when I got a break in traffic let out the clutch a little quick and I lifted the front wheel a few inches, never done that before.

There were no incidents apart from a few dodgy gear changes and coming around a corner and working up through the gears and it missed between 2nd and 3rd and the revs went through the roof, I pulled the clutch in to let it settle and out of the corner of my eye I saw something bouncing down the road alongside of me, this cant be good I though and pulled up, couldn't find anything amiss, until I took the engine side cowl off to see the little rubber grommet that fits into the flywheel was gone, I was relieved but wondered if it had of got jammed, just how much damage it might have done, I walked up the road and back looking for it and an old farmer pulls up in his ute.

"You right Mate, Broken down?"

"no" and I went on to explain what had happened

"She's a beauty, good luck" and off he drove.

I found it and put it back and off I went.

When I got home I have been in the habit of topping up the fuel just so I'm good to go and I did this when I got home Friday also, I was surprised at how much fuel I had used in only 100 kms or so, I put three litres in and ran out, it looked like it might take another litre to bring it back to roughly where it was, in saying that 25kms per litre is probably OK really, just surprised me.

I have two things in mind for the next ride, one is to try and do an accurate fuel consumption calculation, well as accurate as possible and a mini project of mounting my camera and filming some of the scenery about town with the subtle buzz of the engine in the background. should be fun.

Now the workshop is empty I'm looking for something to do.

The joy.

I rolled her out and gave her a kick or two and she jumped into life, the engine did have a better sound to it just idling away, I threw all the tools, cables and oil in, helmet on and I pulled the clutch in and got the sound you can hear in the short video, off I get and try to pin point it with no success, I took the gear selector cover off and it seemed to lose a little volume but was still pretty loud. I thought Id take it for a short run up the road and back anyway to see what happened.
Once out on the open road I took it up to 70kmph, through all the gears, the sound didn't change much at all. The gears themselves changed sharp and true with the new selector, a little stiffer but they felt good, despite the rattle noise, the clutch felt great, nice and firm but smooth and I also noticed the difference in how the bike felt on the road, I wouldn't have thought that the new mounts would make a difference but compared to the old ones I felt like I was floating along, it was great being out on the road again, I went back after about ten minutes and probably 3kms and that's when I took the video, the rattle was a little softer. Nervously I decided to just go out and ride and I'm glad I did.
I rode around the town for another 40 minutes, amounting to approx. 30kms in total, through the gears, through as many different rev ranges as possible, only took it to about 1/3 throttle, up some hills, I even stopped and let it idle, which is where I was having problems before, stopping the engine and kicking it again was also something that I couldn't do, this time around it wasn't a problem, the pull through the gears was very noticeable and the big thing was that after a while the clutch rattle got quieter too.
Some thinking and consulting with a few experienced friends, I believe that although I soaked the clutch plates, they were installed and sat idle for a few weeks, I also recall there being some sort of stick residue on the steel plates too, I tried a few things to get it off to no avail, these things combined may be causing the clutch to be a little sticky and after some riding with some oil flying around inside the gearbox eventually making its way into the plates and stopping the noise. It's a theory.
Now it's running, it's moved out to the other shed to keep the GT company and the workshop is quite lonely, luckily I have my new, well 1974 new, set of Sprint V cases as a project/spare engine to get moving on, first job is to remove the rusted exhaust bolt that has snapped off out, then off to the soda blaster for a clean up. joy joy.