Rough riding after valve clearance adjustment

If you saw rust in your tank and petcock, I would say that's the first place to look. You can bet it got in the carbs, maybe under float valves and possibly plugging pilot jets. I've known guys who have fought rust issues forever until they sealed the tank completely and thoroughly cleaned cards and fuel system. Simply pulling the tank and having the rust float to the petcock side might have done it.

Thanks for everyone's input so far.

The engine doesn't rev up at all after spraying plenty of starter fluid around the boots. If anything it dips down a tiny bit. Could my ears be playing tricks on me?

Nonetheless, I ordered new boots and clamps for good measure. So while I have the carbs off to change those boots I'll check out whats going on inside.

When you did clearnces on valves are your measurments in inches or metric metric should be 0.05-0.10 and inches is .002-.004

If the idle changes at all (up or down) when spraying carb cleaner, WD40, or starter fluid around carb holders they are indeed leaking. Replacing them is a good idea. Ed

If you dont have huge cracks in the boots, just remove them, clean both surfaces well, and reseal them with Kawasaki bond or 1104. Works every time.

Id set the exhuast valves more on the middle of the scale they expand more when heated up and could be held off their seats if they dont have enough clearance.

bountyhunter wrote: sounds like a carb problem. Is the tank/petcock clean? Inline filters clean?

Carbs and fuel system causing the problem, probably. Noise in the motor, did you check the Idler and dampeners?

So it's been a bit of a trip getting this all sorted. Not there quite yet. Started by cleaning the whole fuel system. Tank is clean and sealed up, brand new Pingle petcock, fresh lines and filter, went through the carbs thoroughly, bench synched, and stuck on nice new intake boots with new clamps as well.

After all that, on first start there was nothing but bad misfiring. She ran only with the choke up and throttle open. So I guessed the points and timing were all out of whack, and I also remembered I still had to reset the air screws to where they were before (1 3/4 turn). Okay, simple enough.

But as I attempted static timing, the main fuse blew and got super hot in the process, melting its place in the box. After a new neutral indicator switch (the old one went bad somewhere as I tried to make it home after the initial stalling problems arose) and new fuse box, I could safely leave the ignition on for more than thirty seconds at a time.

So, I checked and re-checked the points, used an ohmmeter for timing, and she started right up with minimal or no use of choke. Except just two cylinders, the third and fourth. And idle was still a bit erratic. Spark plugs are definitely saying things are too rich, but give a good spark. Turns out the two left cylinders had flooded, possibly due to having those air/fuel screws not set. Also still need to re-check float heights. I raised them all according to specs in Sudco's tuning guide (23mm for VM29s), but now that they're back in place on the bike I suspect things aren't right.

Anyway, I got all four cylinders firing up, and now that I thought things were heading in the right direction I decided to hook up a set of vacuum gauges just to see how close the were. They weren't. And messing with those air screws seems more difficult than I thought. Plus, idle is still wandering too much (stalling after a while). To help this out I went to adjust throttle cables, and when I couldn't get it quite right, I figured a new set would do me well. Got a new one on the return side and noticed some improvement. Still waiting on another.

Enter next problem. Down to two cylinders again. This time it's one and four going cold. I'm thinking their corresponding set of points is at fault since there's no sparks coming from that set. And my timing light doesn't work when hooked to one or four but is fine with two and three.

Lastly and finally, while examining the throttle mechanism as a whole I noticed the throttle lever never comes into contact with the throttle stop screw. Is that right? The screw seems effectively useless. Just like my Kawi, for now.

650ed wrote:

daless wrote:
Thicker oil will not fix anything.

...that's right, you've got to add sawdust to it, too.

... :whistle:

...kidding? Of course I'm kidding.

I'm almost willing to be that sounds like the wheel bearing is bad. you want to get that checked asap.

daless wrote: ...the throttle lever never comes into contact with the throttle stop screw. Is that right? The screw seems effectively useless....

Carbs need a proper bench sync.

Good Fortune!

donthaveakawman wrote: I'm almost willing to be that sounds like the wheel bearing is bad. you want to get that checked asap.

What's that in reference to?

Patton wrote: Carbs need a proper bench sync.

Yeah... Thought I followed that procedure pretty well. Guess not. Any clues as to what went wrong?