restoring a bike - setting initial idle

The best lesson I've ever learned is "you get what you pay for".

Some lessons are more expensive than others !  Unfortunately, the more you pay for the lesson, the longer you remember it.   

Well, I dug in and pulled the head and cylinder today.  I'm a little sad because all the engine internals looked pristine.  Cylinders are beautiful, pistons and rings look fine.  Bike has only 8500 miles and it shows. I was hoping to find something clearly wrong which would explain the low compression numbers and why the bike wouldn't run properly.  Maybe the only semi-suspicious thing  I found was these carbon deposits under the head gasket, but these don't look too bad, or do they? 


 

Your valve seals may require replacing.  Also, have you checked timing?

hardrockminer wrote:

Your valve seals may require replacing.  Also, have you checked timing?
 

Timing was correct (I checked when I checked valve clearance earlier).  
Is there an easy-ish way to check if the valve seals are good?  I suppose bad seals would be another way oil could have been getting into the combustion chambers. 



 

Valve seals won't cause low compression that you identified earlier in the thread