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V7Goose

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Everything posted by V7Goose

  1. V7Goose
    I'm a firm believer in keeping the scoot happy - don't you enjoy the feel of dragging your tootsies over a plush rug after a hard day? Well, so does QuickSilver! Goose
  2. V7Goose
    Sounds to me like you may need to avoid that dealer. IF you took it in for gas under the REAR of the bike, and they charged you for work on the floats, they they just deliberately and flagrantly stole your money. Even a stupid and incompetent mechanic would have known the carb overflow hoses run to the front, by the air filters. There is NO way they could have adjusted the floats without disconnecting those vent hoses! Now, if you only complained about the smell of gas, instead of a gas puddle under the rear of the engine, then what they did was reasonable. Goose Oh, one other comment - a REAL float adjustment would have cost you several hundred dollars, not just $100, so they didn't even do that - they just ripped you off.
  3. V7Goose
    I really have no idea what you are talking about. YOU are the one that said you had a needle bounce at 3,200, right? What else are you hearing about? As for the correct connection, the "wasted spark method" does not make any sense. Let me try to explain from the beginning, again. On our bike, with four coils, each coil only NEEDS to fire one time in TWO revolutions. But if that was what it was doing, your tach would only be reading 1/4 of the real RPM. But through some quirk of design, they have it putting out an unneeded spark at TDC on the exhaust stroke - that is the "waste spark". But because it does have this waste spark, your tach is reading 1/2 real RPM instead of 1/4. But to get it to read REAL RPM, you need to either be able to feed the tach the spark pulses from TWO coils at once, or double the number of pulses from one coil. Your options for this are to make the adapter we talked about in the first two posts of this thread, or buy a commercial single-fire adapter. Goose
  4. V7Goose
    Sure sounds like a fuel filter, or maybe a bad pump. Last option (and VERY unlikely) is a plugged tank vent. Goose
  5. V7Goose
    Gee, I hate to tell you this, but your tach is reading 1/2 the real RPM, just like I said. If you were really idling at 500, it would be barely running. And that bouncing around 3,200? It is the rev limiter at 6,500. You are lucky that bike has a rev limiter, or you would have smoked that engine trying to see some decent RPMs. Goose
  6. V7Goose
    If your pipes warmed up evenly on startup, then your coil was working fine when it was cold. It is not uncommon to have a coil break down under heat and fail then. But remember, the heat test is only good within the first few minutes after starting the engine cold - after it has been running a while, heat will seep through everything and even out. Goose
  7. V7Goose
    JCW prices have gone through the roof in the past two years - I have about quit ordering from them. Those lights used to be $40 a pair there, and I thought they were too expensive then. The gauges I use to sync carbs were $50 for about 20 years, but now they are selling them for $120 when everybody else sell them for $80. Glad you posted a better source. Goose
  8. V7Goose
    I'm tired of warning people about those dangerous tires and terrible company. There is a TON of information here for a simple search. But I find the Metzeler lovers don't want to hear it anyway. So be it. Goose
  9. V7Goose
    http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/Product/Pr-p_Product.CATENTRY_ID:2003411/c-10111/Nty-1/p-2003411/Ntx-mode+matchallpartial/N-111+10111+500000/tf-Browse/s-10101/Ntk-AllTextSearchGroup?Ntt=led
  10. V7Goose
    Uhhhhh, read the line above the picture...
  11. V7Goose
    Feeling the header pipes is just one indicator of an issue, and the best way is to touch them as close to the exhaust port as possible immediately after the engine is started cold. This is because even a partially firing cylinder will get too hot to diagnose pretty quick, and a cold start is when the bike might have the biggest problem firing cleanly. But you have a VERY short window before the pipes get too hot up there (must always be testing the inside pipe, not the chrome cover). Then you can try touching them further down - the front pipes are easy to access by the floor boards, and you probably have a couple of minutes for a good comparison between them at that point. But to your actual questions - no way to tell just from the heat what is causing the poor combustion, but typically if just one pipe is much cooler than the others it will be an ignition problem from coil or plugs. At least that is a good place to start. As for the difference between the back and front pipes - I don't have a good explanation for that, but it has not been uncommon. One thing is that the rear header pipes are much shorter, and they will pick up heat from both ends (front exhaust gas blowing by). Even when the bike is fully warmed up, I get lower temps from an IR thermometer on the front clamps than I do on the rear two. I petty much figured that was caused by different angle and less access for the thermometer, but maybe it is a design thing? But for the fingertip test, the fronts should still be getting too hot to handle about as fast as the rear ones. Goose
  12. V7Goose
    Goose
  13. V7Goose
    I have resisted the idea of calling for a real maintenance day here simply because I don't have the room in this neighborhood to have 10-20 bikes squeezed in. Seems to me that 5 or 6 is about the number I'd be comfortable with at the house. But I have repeatedly told people I was available for help - even tried to organize a carb clinic here once. If you want to ride on down, that's great. Let's set a date and see who else wants to show up too. I've already got someone coming up from Houston to do carbs on the 25th - is that too soon for you? Goose
  14. V7Goose
    Let me know too - if there's beer there, I'll be happy to help drink it while I stand around and make snarky comments about any bike that looks or acts better than mine! (and I've been know to turn a wrench or too, occasionally) Goose
  15. V7Goose
    There are four hoses back there: coolant overflow, air plenum vents (x2), and the tank vent. Obviously, the tank vent is the only one that could have gas in it. You may be getting a little dripping from that if you ever overfill the tank before parking or park in the sun a lot (if it is way full and you park in the sun, you will git a LOT of dripping there!). That hose has a rollover valve in it, so maybe that can be collecting some of the fumes and causing a couple of drips occasionally. Whoever said it is a "seal" should have their lips sewn together so they can't keep saying things about which they have no clue. Many of us have smelled gas from our bikes occasionally after parking in the garage, but besides the tank vent hose, there are two carb overflow hoses that could also cause that. Since I park my bike on a rug, I have no idea if mine has ever dripped gas. Goose
  16. V7Goose
    Two oil changes in 5 years is worse than 12,000 on one oil change in 4 months. Letting the old oil sit in there is BAD BAD BAD. Oil picks up contaminates and acids from combustion (and that problem is MUCH worse if the engine is run for relatively short times/miles after it is started). In addition, the engine condenses water inside, just like a gas tank does, causing corrosion. We have no idea if the PO ran it for long or short times after starting, but we know for a fact the old oil was left with the contaminates to eat away at the insides of that engine for years at a time. No way of knowing what long-term effects may be from that abuse - all we can do is hope. Goose
  17. V7Goose
    Now you have me all confused. I thought in your first post you said you could short the starter contacts and get it to crank, which would say your battery is OK. But now you say it dims the lights when you hit the start button, indicating the electrical circuits are fine and your starter is trying to draw more power than your battery can provide????? Can't help much without a more clear understanding of what is actually happening. Clearly the ignition switch and fuses are OK if the lights come on and then dim when you hit the start button. Goose
  18. V7Goose
    If it is not firing while cranking from the screwdriver trick, then it is not getting power to the coil (or bad coil). Since it doesn't crank from the button, it is unlikely the coil is bad. The simple answer would be key or fuse. Goose
  19. V7Goose
    OK, now I am certain, you CANNOT take a normal car tach for a four cylinder engine and get correct reading on an RSV if it is simply connected to one coil. I just took my shop tach and clipped it on the coil for #3: set to 4 cylinders, the reading is just 1/2 of reality. Set to 2 cylinders it read the same as my Drag Specialties tach. I have NO doubts the Drag Specialties tach is correct; because, I have compared it with my computer, AND I have watched as my rev limiter hit right on que at 6,500. Goose
  20. V7Goose
    Steve, there is no problem replacing the existing reflectors. The "drop in" replacements you can get from JCW and other places are both LED lights and reflectors. Goose
  21. V7Goose
    Come and listen to my story about a man named Jed . . . no, wait, wrong story . . .sorry (and appologies to Flatt - or maybe Scruggs). This story is about how glad I am that I have a functioning AIS system on my RSV. My bike has been running perfectly, no popping or anything else odd, but when I had it all torn down last Saturday to check the valves, I thought it was a perfect time to go ahead and replace the plugs anyway. It was a little early for me with only about 15,000 miles on them, but I had the old ones out, so why not? Well, on the 200+ mile ride home from Tom's place, I was getting a lot of loud popping and bangs rolling through the small towns. Bummer! You can probably imagine how disappointed this made me - here I had just done major work on the bike and put in new plugs and all - I expected to be getting about 150 miles to the gallon and roll through town to cheering crowds! But alas, instead of basking in the adoration of pretty women and admiration from all the wannabe bikers, I found myself having to hide my face in shame. Now the odd thing is, I didn't notice anything else wrong with the bike - gas mileage might have been down just a tad, but considering the 105 degree heat and high speeds I was running, it wasn't really lower than normal. And I had zero problems hitting an indicated 100 MPH passing a couple of long strings of cars, so all four jugs had to be hitting OK, right? But there is no denying the evidence - popping from the exhaust on these bikes absolutely proves something is wrong with the way the fuel is burning. So today I finally drug my rear out to the garage to check things out. I fired the bike up and began checking how fast the header pipes were heating up with my fingertips, and it was obvious that the RF (#4) pipe was different. The other three were too hot to keep my finger on for more than a second or two within 15 seconds of starting the bike, but not #4. It was fairly warm, but not burning. Even tho these were brand new plugs, I pulled it and put an old one in - problem solved! And THAT's why I am so tickled my AIS is working - without the warning signs from the exhaust popping, I would have almost certainly ridden the bike with that bad plug in there for 20,000 miles or so before I accidentally fixed it during the next major service. The interesting thing is that this was the EXACT same symptom Ponch had with his bike up at Don's maintenance day - same cylinder, same symptoms, same fix. And his only real indication that something was wrong was the popping when he tried to reconect his AIS system! Goose
  22. V7Goose
    GREAT info Buddy! But I edited your post to change the number. 3462 and 3470 look the same in the picture, but the web site says 3462 is for the xvz1200/1300. I think I'll order one at that price! Goose
  23. V7Goose
    There is a hole in the crash bar right behind the screw that holds on the bag rails. Just run the wire through the bar to there and then out the hole. The rubber spacers in the reflector mount that you need to use to make them fit the bag bars are slit, so just position that slit to the back and run the thin wire out the hole in the crash bar and over through the slit in the rubber spacer to get it inside the reflector mount. Only about one inch of wire is exposed that way, and being behind the rail, you will never see it. Goose
  24. V7Goose
    Something is still wrong here - a four cylinder engine has to turn two full revolutions to fire all four spark plugs once (so it fires an average of two times per revolution). Our bike has four coils, so each one would ordinarily act like a single cylinder engine, meaning that the engine would have to turn two full revolution to fire one time (an average of 1/2 time per revolution). However, all indications are that our bike has a waste spark, meaning it fires each coil once every time the piston reaches TDC, but that would STILL only be one fire per revolution, or half that of a 4-cyl car with a distributor. Motorcycle tachs that work correctly on the RSV are designed for bikes that fire an average of one time per revolution (such as a Harley with a stock dual-fire ignition), so there is no way a car tach set on 4-cyl should read the correct RPM if it is connected to just one coil. The only point to this post is just to warn others to not go jumping to the conclusion that a car tach set on 4-cyl is going to work on an RSV - there is still something missing here. I actually have an old shop tach that has both a 2-cyl and 4-cyl setting - I'll see if I can hook that up to the RSV and compare the reading with my Drag Specialties tach. Goose
  25. V7Goose
    Well, keep us posted. If it turns out to be the right tool, I'd consider buying one and putting a shim kit together just to have it here in North Texass. Goose
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