hydrolocked?

So i just cleaned and rebuilt the carbs on my Seca the last couple of weeks. In my hurry, i didn't bench sync them and just put them on, expecting them to be pretty close to working well.

To keep gas flow to the engine while no carb was hooked up to the petcock, i put it in prime, but didn't see any noticeable flow in my inline fuel filter, so i assumed it'd be OK.
Today, i hook the 4 nipples up to my manometer and start adjusting the butterfly valves. I crank it and rev it and adjust some things about 5 or 6 times. things are looking good.

then i crank it again. It turns over a couple times, seizes, and gasoline (i think) shoots up manometer tube #1.

Not quite grasping what just happened and wanting to see/hear it again, i did it again (possibly foolishly). same thing.

It's over at a friend's house so I didn't have my tools at the time to pull the spark plugs and see. I won't be able to get to it for a few hours yet. I'm thinking it's hydrolocked but I've never experienced a hydrolocked engine, so I don't know.

If it IS hydrolocked (i'm assuming it'd be because of the fuel tank being on prime with that cylinder being allowed to suck way to hard) the what should I do next? It would have drained past the cylinder rings by the time i can get to it again, so what should I do to re-oil the rings? just put some oil down the cylinder through the spark plug hole? Is it enough of an emergency that I should drain the oil before trying to tune it again?

Sorry guys. I know it's a lot of questions, but i'm sure I'd end up asking them all eventually.
Any ideas are appreciated. Please let me know your thoughts!

 

If you knew EXACTLY where your oil level was, on centerstand, then you look in the window and can approximate how much gas got in.
You could always do a quickie oil change without the filter.

"and gasoline (i think) shoots up manometer tube #1.. . ."

WOW- that's alot of gas for an engine that was just running!

Remove all 4 plugs, spin the motor over (coils deactivated)
oil the jugs. You will be looking at doing a proper float level adjustment on the bench.

 

by "oil the jugs" you mean...?

 

The Pistons/Barrels

 

Don't want to scare you, but a hydrolock can cause a bent rod. There's a fair number of examples on the Concours forum.

 

Yeah, but our starter clutches aren't strong enough to bend a toothpick - :lol:

". . .by "oil the jugs" you mean...?. . ."

Oh- come on !!

 

just checking! I figured it was just as easy to say pistons... i'm kinda worried about my bike. I just finished cleaning up the head and replacing the head gasket and re-doing the carburetors and replacing a brake caliper and pads on both sides and I just want it to run--not worry about killing piston rings and bending connecting rods.

 

For Gasoline to appear in the Nanometer Tube, ...

There would need to be quite a lot of gas present in the Manifold.
More than would be "Metered" by the correct Main Fuel Jet.

Before that much Fuel would be available to reach the Intake Manifold Port:
There'd be a small pond of Gas surrounding the Bike from Fuel leaking onto the ground out of the Overflow's.

 

I don't know where the "overflows" would be located, but you're right, Rick. There was gas shooting up into manometer tube 1 before there was any sign of gasoline anywhere outside of the bike, but when i went back yesterday evening, there was a good bit of gas that had dripped down the center stand and onto the asphalt. It dissolved the asphalt into oily gravel and I had to move the bike to keep it from sinking into the ground.
It turns out I had the choke pulled while I was syncing the butterfly valves, so that might have helped pull the liquid gas into the cylinders, but clearly i need to adjust the float levels.

question about adjusting float levels. I've seen what people have done with building stands and using alternate fuels so they don't waste gas or get it everywhere, but I'm more wondering about methodology:
If the gas level in the tube connected to the drain is above/below the prescribed level, do you have to undo all 4 bowl screws, empty gas somewhere, adjust, and then try it again? or is there some easier way to do this without disconnecting a full carb bowl each time to make nanoadjustments?

 

another question: how would i know if a connecting rod was bent? I turned the engine over several times with a wrench to work oil into the piston rings. There was a squeaking sound at first like metal on metal (like brakes that need new pads) but that eventually went away after maybe 10 turns, so hopefully that means the rings got some oil on them, and not that they've sufficiently scored the piston walls that there's no longer enough friction to make noise. Sorry, that was kind of a tangent. Original question, though--how would I know if a rod was bent? low compression in a particular cylinder?

 

Don't worry about a bent rod.

The squeaking sound was likely the starter clutch/starter being dragged along.

What you can do with the floats, is get one perfect. Then pop the bowls, and using a gauge of some fashion, physically match the other three to the "perfect" one. Then re-test. But yes, you do need to keep filling and draining if more than one needs adjusting. They still all need to be verified using fuel, but a good "dry" set will get you much closer to begin with.

CHECK YOUR VALVE CLEARANCES.

Verify/set the floats.

Bench sync. THEN you can start trying to vacuum sync.

You're getting the cart before the horse.

 

In y'all's experience, do the floats need readjusting after EVERY carb renewal? I haphazardly threw everything into a pile (not keeping track of what went with which carb) and thought that's where my problem was. Instead, the problem was that I somehow put float #1 in upside down! Yeah, I felt pretty dumb, but I just want future thread-visiters know that if you've hydrolocked, or flooded, then you might consider checking that you've put the floats in correctly.

To follow-up my question above about readjusting floats when renewing carbs, I did a float test. Leveled everything. in every direction. opened the petcock. The fuel in every bowl went perfectly to where the FSM indicated. So either i'm just unrealistically lucky, or it's unrealistic that floats and valves would get so unadjusted after every overhaul.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing the thoroughness of it all. And i understand that 90% of peoples' engine problems can be because they did a haphazard carb job, but I just wish i could expect to get straightforward ideas about problems without everyone instead harping on me for not spending $300 and my whole summer to clean up some carbs that hardly even gotten dirty over the previous year.

so yeah. careful not to put floats in upside-down...

 

Maybe not readjusted but definitely checked. I just did a set of carbs, and it was spot on.