Change of plans. I figured if I was going to turn the bike over to the shop in Martinez, they need to have 800-1000 miles on the new engine first, which means that I still need to get the bike started again. I've got plenty of time to work on the jetting, so I decided to get her going this week.
Not so easily done. I tried firing her up and she wasn't having any part of it. I was confident that the starting issue was almost strictly an air/fuel mixture problem, since it was running before. So I systematically started to change the A/F mixture keeping track of exactly what I was doing. I first started incrementally turning the screw out counterclockwise, but was having no success. I would periodically check the plugs and they were pretty dry. I did a spark test on her last night to confirm that the plugs were still firing. Yup. Everything looked good. Well, it can only be a small number of things- spark, fuel, compression or timing. I was sure that the bike was good for compression and timing, and I just checked the spark, so I was on the right track changing the fuel mixture.
Today I started turning the screw back in. Around one full turn out, the bike started acting like it wanted to start. As tired as I was from kicking, I continued my attempts after resting in between tries. After about 3 cycles, the bike started running again, but the idle really needed to be turned up.
I started working from the top of that pdf worksheet on carb tuning, recording meticulously everything I was doing. The bike was running its best around 0.75 turns out. I got the bike to idle at 1800 rpm's. I took it out for a ride working in the 0-1/4 throttle range. Everything seemed pretty good, so I put in a fresh plug and did a plug chop. When I pulled the plug out, it was so white! Not barely even a hint of tan! So this engine is idling super-lean. That's probably why it's having such issues getting started. And the A/F screw is almost turned in all the way, being as rich as it could go, while still having a little adjustment left to it. That was a sure sign that I need larger pilot jets. So I put in an order to EconomyCycle for a could of larger sizes of pilots, and a leaner range of main jets, because I'm pretty sure that I'm running really rich on top.
The jets should arrive in a few days, then I'll be at it again! The jets cost me roughly $50. If I could save that $500 from the shop cost, that would be awesome! I don't need it to run race ready, just good enough to be smooth and enjoy! I'll just take my time and be systematic about the process and I think I can have a good outcome.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Sunday, April 26, 2020
SIP Update
Well, I'm pretty bored with this whole Covid Shelter-In-Place thing. I don't have it quite as bad as some others- since I'm a healthcare worker, I need to go out and get to my job. But still, on my days off, I'm here at home trying to keep busy with whatever I can.
Today, I decided to get working again on Angie, my RD400. When I left off at the end of last season, I still needed to get the bike properly jetted. I messed around with a few carb configurations, but it actually resulted in killing the bike altogether. For about a week, I tried to get the motor to fire, but it was a done deal :(
I woke up early. Got some coffee in me and started picking at the bike. I hunted down the original carb configurations for when I had my first successful start and I figured I'd go from there. I swapped out the main jets from 280's back to 260's. I found that I had put in 27.5 pilot jets, so I returned them to 30's. I checked the needle position and the A/F mixture screw. I double-checked my plugs to make sure that I wasn't running 7's. I made sure they were gapped to 0.025-0.028". I wasn't entirely sure if which plug wires went to which plugs, so it was going to be a crapshoot. After a few unsuccessful attempts, the bike finally roared back to life! It ran hella smokey and the idle was high, but at least it was running again!
While I was tooling around the bike today, I also installed the aftermarket horn, although I didn't bother yet to clean and paint the mount.
Last year, when I put her to bed, I was thinking of doing to jetting myself, but now I think I'm over it. There's a shop in Martinez that can tune it in. I spoke with them last year. They had just finished doing an RZ350 and they were comfortable with 2-strokes. I think they quoted me around $500, which is pricey, but I just want it done correctly.
The majority of what still needs to get done is the jetting and the last parts of the electrical that I haven't been able to get working yet- the brake light and the turn signals. I found a small shop in Livermore that said they could hunt down the electrical problems. I'm in the home stretch!
Today, I decided to get working again on Angie, my RD400. When I left off at the end of last season, I still needed to get the bike properly jetted. I messed around with a few carb configurations, but it actually resulted in killing the bike altogether. For about a week, I tried to get the motor to fire, but it was a done deal :(
I woke up early. Got some coffee in me and started picking at the bike. I hunted down the original carb configurations for when I had my first successful start and I figured I'd go from there. I swapped out the main jets from 280's back to 260's. I found that I had put in 27.5 pilot jets, so I returned them to 30's. I checked the needle position and the A/F mixture screw. I double-checked my plugs to make sure that I wasn't running 7's. I made sure they were gapped to 0.025-0.028". I wasn't entirely sure if which plug wires went to which plugs, so it was going to be a crapshoot. After a few unsuccessful attempts, the bike finally roared back to life! It ran hella smokey and the idle was high, but at least it was running again!
While I was tooling around the bike today, I also installed the aftermarket horn, although I didn't bother yet to clean and paint the mount.
Last year, when I put her to bed, I was thinking of doing to jetting myself, but now I think I'm over it. There's a shop in Martinez that can tune it in. I spoke with them last year. They had just finished doing an RZ350 and they were comfortable with 2-strokes. I think they quoted me around $500, which is pricey, but I just want it done correctly.
The majority of what still needs to get done is the jetting and the last parts of the electrical that I haven't been able to get working yet- the brake light and the turn signals. I found a small shop in Livermore that said they could hunt down the electrical problems. I'm in the home stretch!
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