Vickersguy

It occurred to me that you might check the rear brake caliper also. Its hidden and your leak might be there.

You've got a leak. That white crusty stuff in your picture is dried brake fluid. The up side is you have a master cylinder that looks to be in good condition. The rebuild kits are on e-bay for a reasonable price. Pull it, clean it, soak the circlip in oil for a day and free it up. The rebuild is a breeze. XXX steel will used gently will smooth the corrosion, if any, on the inside. A small wire brush will get the big stuff on the outside. Check the tube to the reservoir for leaks, check the o-ring on that black plastic spigot the hose connects to. Clean carefully, degrease, blow it out with compressed air and paint with rustolium or some such to protect the aluminum. You'll be good to go. You can reuse the copper seals by heating them bright orange and quenching them quickly in cold water. Let us know how it goes !

I'm thinking this is as bad as it gets............. or can get....

My first was a two tone blue '84. Sold it to my brother, who eventually sold it to a retired fire chief. The fire chief was scared of it and parked it behind his barn, outside, no cover, in 2005. It's still behind the barn, twenty years on.

At 40 years on, they're getting rare ! Wasn't me ! Still enjoy mine. Gotta get that 4 brush starter motor, though. The original just won't spin it hard enough anymore.

I'm suprised no one has responded to you. As for the alignment, most folks install these parts about last on the list. As per the illustrations in the manuals, this would be a good place to start. Remember to keep the arms 90 degrees from the direction of thrust. Well, as best you can. The final adjustment will have to do with how your foot engages the shift lever, where your foot is on the foot peg and so forth. I have an "83 myself. Welcome to the fold here.

Comon, I can't be the ONLY guy still riding an original ! Anybody ? LOL.

I thought Made2care and luvmy40 would show up.........

The original models, '83-85 s are now 40+ years old. How many guys are still hitting the asphalt with these antiques ? We can still get batteries, tires and there are plenty of spare parts on e-bay. Well, except for rear master cylinders. They are cheap enough you can buy a whole bike for parts anyway, if you look around. Downside, you have to be able to do your own maintenance. I enjoy my '83 and get to enter it in antique Auto Shows ! Awesome ! How 'bout you ? I know there are a few of us here, How about a roll call ?

Thanks for all you do here, Happy Birthday ! I'm 71, it's not over ! Enjoy !

I wouldn't second guess your judgement on the option of resetting the floats but doing so without a careful examination of your plugs is ill-advised. I had ignition problems on my bike I erroneously attributed to a carb problem. I reset the floats and after having no improvement, found other reasons for my poor engine performance. Now I'm super lean and have to do it all over again. Only modify your float levels after reading the plugs.

Welll, I got the year wrong. Midway thru 85 is correct, not 84. Reread my last post. On a bike with 2500 miles on the clock, there will be no failure. You are wasting your time looking for it. I have 38,000 miles on my 83 and 2nd gear still fine. IF you are looking for a way to talk the guy down, this isn't going to work for you. Explain to him, you need new tires, brake lines, piston caliper seals, carb work and so forth. What is he asking ?

Like I said, the problem was fixed on late '84 bikes. If this one has a high serial # it has the hardened split washer that fixed the failure point. That cut off number is somewhere on the forum.

Well, If you are a normal rider, this will not be a problem, 2nd. gear will not fail you. The transmission will start to pop out of gear between 35,000 and 45,000 miles. If you ride about 2200 miles a year, which is about average, you will be faced with this crisis in about 16 years. If, however, you get real excited and ride more the first two years or so, you can get there faster. You might face the 2nd. gear failure in 10 years. I have 38,000 on the clock and my 2nd is fine. I don't ride much. If it fails, I don't care. One of the guys here used to buy bikes with failed 2nd. gears cheap and would put 100,000 more miles on them with no second gear function at all. He's just run the bike up to about 40 mph in first gear, then shift to 3rd. Don't worry about 2nd gear.

Oh yeah, tires... Well I run Shinkos. They have plenty of stick and that trumps long life in my book. Low price too.