I just finished installing a litetek seal kit on my A model following the write ups on here and set the air/fuel screws to 2 1/2 turns out after replacing the washers and the remnants of the o rings and didn't touch any other setting. Put the carbies back in and now the bike doesn't sound like it even wants to start. Any idea on what the problem could be?
sounds like you cranked it while it had no fuel and killed your battery mate, do you have a charger or jump pack? or jumper leads? it doesnt take too long of cranking on even a brand new battery to drain it on these. Also make sure to not leave the tap on prime for too long or you may hydrolock.
The battery is on charge now. It didn't sound like it was struggling from a flat battery as after a second or 2 it would crank fine again. The battery went dead because I left the ignition on
the other thing is you may have flooded it. if it smells fuelly wold the throttle wide open while cranking. lastly some good ole start ya bastard helps. for a first start again
I'm with Huntsman, sounds like the carbies have flooded & filled a cylinder with fuel,may be a sticky inlet needle, it might come good or maybe a leak past the inlet seat O ring around the insert, you would have replaced these o rings when you did the Litetek kit ?/? Take the plugs out before you crank it again & then turn it over to pump out any fuel, it is possible to bend a rod.
Yeah done it with the litetek kit. Just had another look and noticed fuel leaking down the side of the engine. I'll pull the carbies off once my daughter goes to bed and have a look.
Quite often after carbs have been re-assembled the floats stick. Tap the side of the float bowl with a screwdriver handle and they usually return to normal operation.
Cheers. Can I attach the carbs to the fuel tank without putting them on the bike to make sure they aren't leaking before putting them back on the bike?
Had another look at the carbies this morning. 1st and 4th cylinders were full of fuel so I took the spark plugs out and gave it a crank and they are all clear. The leak in the carbies seems to be sorted and I also discovered that I have a dead spark plug which explains why the 4th cylinder header was not as hot as the rest. I tested another spark plug on that lead to make sure as well as testing the faulty plug on another lead and still had no spark. I threw both plugs back in and put the carbies back on the bike and primed them then tried to start the bike and still nothing. I'll have another look later once my daughter gets out of bed.
SHE LIVES AGAIN!!!! I had a look at the connections on the leads and they looked like crap so I trimmed and reconnected them and have it a bit of a crank and off she went. It starts so much easier and idles better. Just need to take it for a test ride now.
Went for a ride last night and she died as I went into a round about. Had to push it to the side of the road and with a little bit of sweet talking, got her going again. It seems a bit sluggish at lower revs. Would that be from the air/fuel setting?
Could be, did I see you had them at 2 1/2 turns out ? try starting at 2, seems to be a good starting point. Try & find some little o rings & replace them on the mixture screws, I think I got a mixed box at Bunnings for a few dollars that has some small ones that fitted with some lube. How are all the float / fuel heights ? Everything has to be just right or you'll chase your tail. Good on ya for getting this far, your almost there.
Yeah the o rings were replaced and I set them to 2 1/2 turns. I'll look at the float height while I have the carbies out again. When the bike died it would only start again with the throttle fully open and would only rev to about 2k then gradually creeped up to 4k then everything seemed fine again.
Could still be flooding, sticky inlet needle, full throttle indicates rich or flooding, it might settle in with use. Give it a good hard rev on the stand from low revs, dont wind it up just one rev, but not over the limit your only looking at low & mid revs settings, just to see if there's a sign of un burnt smoke from the exhaust that'll indicate a rich setting. Remember free revving on the stand is nasty for an engine not laoded up especially these things doing 18 000 rpm, for example we rev highly tuned & balanced 2 stroke kart engines to 15k & over that they usually do damage, the high end international engines do 18k but are rebuilt after a race or 2 so for a production engine to do 18k over & over is amazing, thats 300 revs per second Sorry got a bit carried away.!
It seemed to sort itself out after a little bit of riding. There was a bit of smoke coming from the exhaust when I first started it up after putting the carbs back in which I assumed was just from being flooded earlier.