Restoring Zephanie

wrote:

Have you tried it on the PRIME setting?

Yes, I did try that.

wrote:

Are the coil wires reversed?

Checked, and double-checked.

wrote:

do you smell a lot of fuel, when cranking it?  if not, are you sure the engine is getting sufficient fuel?

No, definitely no strong scent of gas. And if anything (as I will discuss below) it might have been getting too much fuel.

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And in other news, I got it running! Yesterday I pulled the spark plugs, and they definitely looked black and sooty. I left them out for a few hours to allow the cylinder chambers to gas out a bit. Installed four new plugs, took her outside and voilà! Honestly might sound better now than ever, smooth like a dang turbine.

So my going theory at this point is that I’ve had the bike running too rich since I’ve owned it. Thinking back on what the issue was the last time I had trouble starting and getting it running, it was fouled and dead spark plugs then too. Additionally, I’ve never had great gas mileage, only about 32mpg. I know it’s a 31-year-old carbureted four-cylinder bike, so it’s not gonna get the nice 75mpg kind of gas mileage some of my friends claim their bikes get. But I always felt like with some tuning it ought to do better than 32mpg. What do you guys think?

 great news, 32mpg for a 550 sounds poor, I would expect my 1000 to be good for that. Worth getting it checked it out

wrote:

I’ve never had great gas mileage, only about 32mpg. I know it’s a 31-year-old carbureted four-cylinder bike, so it’s not gonna get the nice 75mpg kind of gas mileage some of my friends claim their bikes get. But I always felt like with some tuning it ought to do better than 32mpg. What do you guys think?
 

It depends on how hard you ride.  My 1977 KZ650-C1 can get 36 mpg if I take it easy or 25 mpg (or less) if I'm running it hard.  Ed

I get about 40 doing city riding with my 750, nearly 50 on the freeway, so I think maybe something is up. 

If your bike don´t start with break cleaner or starter fluid (Ether) sprayed into the air box your ignition or valve timing is wrong.
Did you do a compression test, because your e-starter motor turns the engine so fast like no spark plugs were installed or you have some bend valves stems?!?!
 

Happy Monday everyone! Here's a picture of my bike from this morning.



So where it's at right now...

• I still need to lean out the fuel/air mixture, for hopefully better mileage, and longer spark plug life.
• The front brake feels like it may still need to be bled a little bit more. I like to use two-fingers on my clutch and front brake levers, and I'm having to pull the front brake in all the way to my knuckles before it really starts to bite aggressively. If that's the way it's supposed to be, I guess I just need to get used to using my rear brake a little bit more.
• New rear tire. The one that's on there is five years old.
• Install the rear rack. I lost the luggage hooks in the accident, and I have a nice rack from Renntec that just needs to be bolted on. 

I had been pretty set on keeping the bike stock before the accident, making only invisible mods (615cc Wiseco big bore kit, RaceTech springs and gold valve emulators in the original forks), but now that the bike is rebuilt status, and I've already had to live with a chopped fender, new color, and some busted gauges, I'm thinking about going full-on "restomod" and making it my real dream bike. Custom color, a front end swap for some USD forks (with RaceTech internals), upgraded brakes, custom gauges, maybe a bikini fairing, custom reshaped fuel tank, and yes, Yoshimura exhaust, and the big bore kit. Of course, this is all long-term planning at this point. I'm just happy to be back on two wheels!

Bike is looking good, if you are happy with it do your mods in stages. Ref your brakes, it sometimes helps to clear stubborn air bubbles if you let nature take it's course (gravity bleeding) open both front nipples with pipes into a jar and leave for an hour or two (keep an eye on the fluid level so it doesn't drop too low and introduce more air in the system)

Nice job!

Looking good mate..!

Rack install, check!

 

The weather outside absolutely sucks today. Well ok, it’s just rain and it’s not even that cold, but makes it hard to work on my bike. I don’t have a nice big garage, so I’m literally crouched inside my CycleShell.

Anyway, as I’m doing this, a couple of carb-related questions came up. 

• I’m thinking it would be nice for me if I could remove the choke lever. And by that I mean the lever at the handlebars, and the attached cable, while leaving the actual slide mechanism at the carbs intact. I could attach a little knob to pull it open at the side of the bike, so it still functions. Why? It just seems to me like less clutter, a nearly microscopic weight savings, and one less cable to detach when removing the carbs. I don’t really see it as an inconvenience to have to reach down to the side of the bike to pull a knob, though I suppose if I’m being dumb and I forget to push it back in, that would be bad. But is there any other reasons why you guys would recommend against this idea? 

• The carb float bowl drain screws are JIS philips screws and mine are starting to strip out from too many previous owners using non-JIS drivers on them. Are there allen key socket cap replacement screws available for this, or do I just have to stick with OEM? 

• The idle mix knob on the side seems like it is sort of a wonky design with that 90° bend in it, and it always feels like it winds itself back a little in either direction when making small adjustments. Kind of like truing spokes on a bicycle wheel. I was thinking kind of like what I was talking about with the choke lever, I could shorten the whole thing and have it just be the knob directly connected in a straight path, which would place the knob up under the carbs in the middle of the bike. Obviously it’s convenient being able to make adjustments to that knob while seated on the bike, but really it shouldn’t be necessary to do that very often anyway right? Like honestly I have largely been able to set it and forget it, meaning it wouldn’t be a big deal if it was slightly more difficult to get to. But again, is there any reason why this would be a bad idea? I was wondering about making adjustments for altitude and such, but I don’t know if that’s even a concern.

 "The carb float bowl drain screws are JIS philips screws and mine are starting to strip out from too many previous owners using non-JIS drivers on them. Are there allen key socket cap replacement screws available for this, or do I just have to stick with OEM?"

The choke thing sounds like a "faff" but almost anything is achievable. Ref the screws, unless they have a specific purpose "air screws etc" they are generally easily replaced. You just need to know the thread and length and search accordingly EG: M5x1.0x20 = 5mm diameter x 1.0 mm pitch x 20mm long (this is only an example - I don't know what size your screws are!)