Trouble w/cold starting and idle

Hi All,
I was able to get my bike fired up yesterday for the first time in 11+yrs.
The first time she fired up I needed to use ether and a bunch of kick starting. After she was running awhile I was able to stablize her idle at around 1K rpm, on full and half choke. When I go below 1k she stalls, and when I go to no choke she wants to stall, unless I keep the rpms up and then runs really rough w/some backfire. After I got her warmed up she fired up w/a little blip of the starter switch or maybe a quater kick. I must have started her a dozen, or more, times, all afternoon and into the evening. Pulled the plugs and they had a
fluffy black carbon deposit. Today I expected to be able to just start it w/no problems and go on to other problems. Before I tried I pulled the plugs and cleaned them up just to get the best spark I could. I tried to use the starter and ran into a problem I've been having but thought it cleared up when I got everything loosend up after it's long slumber. Since the starter didn't work, I started to kick it...no luck. I then went right to the ether, Bang started right up.
Got her warmed up and everything stablized like yesterday. No problems starting it using the starter and the kickstart. Decided to do a higher rpm test. Cleaned the plugs and ran it a around 4K rpm for about 5 min and killed the power, got a little backfire. Pulled the plugs and they are still black but no fluffy deposit and looks cleaner, more burned than fouled. I haven't adjusted the cam tentioner nor have I done anything w/the valves. The petcock is working correctly. I've cleaned and rebuilt the, Mikuni BS34 carbs, all new jets, including the o-rings and the little screen baskets on the float valves. Stock pilot needle w/no adjustment slots. Floats are bench adjusted to 18.6 +-.2mm. Air/fuel is adjusted 2.5 out from needle seat. Replaced #115 or #112.5 stock main jets w/117.5 and stock #40 pilot jets. Intake/exhaust mods which might effect the system are Mac 2-1 pipes and K&N pods, including crankcase filter. Spark seems weak. I'm getting 12v at the battery when the ignition is turned on and 12.75 w/the ignition off. I'm getting 11.25v at the coil. Am I correct in believing that these reading would indicate that I'm not getting enough juice to the coil, for an efficient spark? WG, do you think your coil mod will help?
I'm so close to getting her back on the road I can taste it!
Any help would be greatly appriciated.
Thanks

Um.... heheh.... what was the question?





11.25v does seem a bit weak; mine was about that. I used some jumper wire to test out the coil wiring mod, from battery to coil power terminals, it was immediately obvious how much easier the bike started, so I bought a foglight install kit that had a socketed relay and inline fuse and turned it into a WG coil power mod.

Rickman wrote:

Um.... heheh.... what was the question?





11.25v does seem a bit weak; mine was about that. I used some jumper wire to test out the coil wiring mod, from battery to coil power terminals, it was immediately obvious how much easier the bike started, so I bought a foglight install kit that had a socketed relay and inline fuse and turned it into a WG coil power mod.

Hi Rickman and thanks for the suggestion. If I understand you, you are recommending the coil mod but suggesting that I do a test first? Go directly from the + battery terminal to the power input of the coil and see how it starts/idles. Sounds like a winner to me.
I see you are almost local, my wife and I went to the Manassas(Prince William?) county fair a couple of weeks ago. It was much nicer, more country, than the MD State or the PG, Montgomery or Howard county fairs.
Thanks again
Ron

You got it, you are welcome! Let us know how it goes.

Rickman wrote:

11.25v does seem a bit weak; mine was about that. I used some jumper wire to test out the coil wiring mod, from battery to coil power terminals, it was immediately obvious how much easier the bike started, so I bought a foglight install kit that had a socketed relay and inline fuse and turned it into a WG coil power mod.

Hey Rickman, I got the components to make WG's mod but I also got a foglight install kit. Since the install kit has all the components and is already pre-wired, I'd like to use that instead of making all the soldering connections. The problem is that the relay leads, on the foglight kit are labled 1, 2, 3, 4. There is one thick white wire that is attached to an inline fuse, this is pretty obviously the power lead that connects to the starter relay bolt. There is a thin black wire that is labled ground.
This leaves me w/a thin white wire and a thick actually 2) white wire(s) that hook to the lights. Is this thick white wire what goes to the coil. This would mean that the thin white wire gets hooked to the original coil power wire. Is this correct.
Thanks for the help.
Ron

Hmm trouble with relays, eh? need to suss out which wire is for which function of the relay..

www.the12volt.com/relays/relays.asp

Here's a relay diagram with normal notation, what we want is to wire it so that when the key is on, electricity passes thru the coil (leads 85 and 86). this will make the relay click, and it will throw the switch for power from 30 to 87.

If you look at the instructions with your foglight kit, they will have you wire it so that the foglight switch enables current thru the coil. this identifies the leads that need to be spliced into the whatever you are using to trigger the relay. you can confirm this by grounding one and touching the other to the battery +, to make the relay click.

Then the other wires are to the battery to get juice to #30, and then out to the foglights, or in this case the coil. This does indeed sound like the fused lead and the 'thick' lead(s).

The thin white wire should accept power from the old coil-energizing lead -- it will energize the coil for the relay now -- and the black one can go to ground. you will need to cut and splice this in here -- do some soldering, use some heat-shrink tube to cover it. Don't be like me -- Do put the tubing on the wire before soldering the wires together...
:whistle:

God, I guess it was my turn to type too much. :lol:

Short answer: "Sounds good to me!"

Hope this helps
Ricky

Hey guys, I wanted to let you know about my progress. Since writing the last time I've got the bike running . I've got her idling around 950 w/the choke closed and starts cold w/several kicks. I did several things so I really don't know what fixed it. I put on the WG coil mod, the wires on the foglight were pretty thin so I went w/building the real WG mod. Thanks Rick for the help in figuring out what lead was what. I went up to a #50 pilot jet and I also found that one of my carb journels was clogged. Oh yeah, I put "Sea Foam" in the tank and I think that's helping clean the system and now will get better the more I ride. She's running fine right now, except there is an occasional dead spot right as I crack the throttle to take off, I'm hoping the sea foam will work through that.
Anyway I wanted to thank everyone for all their suggestions and help.
She's a runnin'...ye ha!!!
Ron