One issue down and another arises...

I spent most of the day today at TheCrazyGnat's house where he was help me with one of several issues with my bike, today's issue was addressing my 20mpg fuel consumption and the number 3 cylinder not firing.
First thing that we checked found the issue, pilot jet for #3 carb was out, it was put back in it's place and crazygnat set tuning the carbs up again, after a couple hours of fidgeting adjustments made to compensate for only 3 working cylinders he got everything set good( my mpg is up to 33.6)....and then the hang idle returned!!! We sprayed every carb boot, every vacuum cap with starter fluid after restarting the bike but no change to the idle, as if there is no vacuum leak... crazygnat had replaced all the seals in the carbs for me earlier this year. What else should we check? I'm hoping that with clearing this hang idle issue and color tuning #3 I can get my mpg rating up to 40...

Now one of the other issues I'm having is oil pushing through tach cable and out the top by the cluster...we plan on ordering all new gaskets and replacing them to make sure everything is sealed as it should be, any other thoughts or suggestions for this issue?

 

I'm guessing a colortune/running synch should solve the idle issue.
Cool that you two hangout.

 

He did do a running sync , just couldnt get rid of that hang idle, he worked at it for a good while ( I held a table umbrella to keep the sun off lmao!)
Yeah gnat is a good guy! He has a lovely little family too! We rode together up to Hogfiddles carb clinic. I'm trying to plan I little trip to the beach soon too! Maybe we can make that a thing.... XJBIKES beach run! Lol

 

Is the throttle cable firmly seated in the cable holding bracket on the carbs?

 

I'll check that in the morning to be sure but I believe so, unless gnat remembers otherwise...

 

I had high, but steady idle after taking my carbs to church. Seems I just had the idle adjustment way off. Backed the screw off and it's been acting normal so far.

 

the mechanical tack drive acts like an
Archimedes' screw and forces oil up when the 2 seals are shot. that is why oil is in the tach cable

 

I take my lobsters to church.

 

You're quick! I just edited it, hoping no one would catch it first.

 

My crabs definitely didn't come from church!

 

Both seals we're replaced this spring, even double checked before head to the carb clinic to be sure they were installed correctly.... The one thing Dave suggested was cam chain tunnel gasket might be bad, not there, or too think( aftermarket) causing things to flex.... hence why I plan on just re-replacing all gaskets.....

 

We dickered with adjusting the idle screw for a while, right now it idles at 1500rpm,what does your idle at? It only seems to do it in 1st and 2nd gear as well as when I stop and holy the clutch in( rpms jump to about 4k until I ease off the clutch), occasionally it revs up in neutral....again, we check for vacuum leaks and nothing really happened...

 

We also checked the air jets in carbs 1&2, unfortunately we ran out of time and couldn't really look at everything. I believe throttle cable was seated, at least pushing down on the screws didn't help calm the idle. I wouldn't rule out an imperfect sync as at least part of the problem. I was having a little trouble with it and realized, after a while, that the tube over #3 had gotten a tear in it.

 

Ok throttle is seated but pops out easily....

 

the running sync has to be right or all bets are off. the #3 port usually goes to the fuel valve, a crack in that could cause all sorts of problems.
i gave up on those vacuum port caps they sell at Advance, they don't live long. instead cut a inch of vacuum line and plug one end, they will last forever
must be different material

 

The caps that are on mine now are ones Dave gave at the carb clinic, the are all in good shape, I am however going to go to advance to get a new vacuum line that runs from number 2 to tank, it's getting really hard and won't last much longer

 

This^^^

I spent a really long time with my 2-bottle ho-made manometer getting the synch right. Prior to that I had an erratic idle as you describe.

Really like the vacuum line idea.

 

The thing that was ripped was the line coming off my carb tune, not sure how it happened...

 

I have it set to just a hair over 1000 and it runs smooth and steady (at least on the center stand; need to fix an electrical problem before I can get on the road). PO had it set to 1400, I'm guessing to overcome out-of-spec valves and carb issues.

 

I'll dial it back tomorrow and see how she does and post the results

 

Ok I've adjusted it out but still sitting on 1500 once warmed up, as of now the idle screw isn't even touching the bar....now what?

 

We've got more work to do...

 

I don't know enough about carb work to know what to do...might sound stupid but could the carbs be adjusted too"high"? Hit me up next time you wanna to some more work lol I'm going for a quick ride now!

 

It, at the very least, needs some more syncing done. We can do a color tune as well, we didn't have time to do that. Boots looked ok to me, we replaced the throttle shaft seals , and repaired one of the diaphragms, but I can't help feeling like there isn't some sort of air leak. The idle mixture o rings were reused, but I don't think that they would be the cause. Maybe we just need to start from a fresh bench sync again.

 

Whatever you think man, there is definitely something going g on we ain't seeing