'81 550 takes lots of cranking to start, backfires

Thanks loud, I'll test for that this weekend.

What would cause the spark plugs to be blackened already, with white tips? Is there anything that a thorough carb cleaning wouldn't address? I'll clean the plugs up today and see if the discoloration returns after some riding.

It's pretty normal for the metal ring to be fairly black. The porcelain should be grayish. White would be too lean, but it's hard to say with only 50 miles. When the mixture is right, it takes longer fo the plugs to show color.

Strange, though, the color has changed for me over the years. I used to get nice tan colored plugs, but nowadays they are gray, at about the same darkness. I think fuel changes have caused this color change over the last 10 years or so.

Alright, it runs better now, but the left exhaust put out some white smoke when it started and is backfiring/popping quite a lot. The fuel is very low in the tank, and I guess by now it has been sitting for a solid week through some hot then cool temperatures. I'm going to top it off and ride around to see if the strangeness maintains.

My mistake was to follow whatever online guide or youtube video I found that said to adjust the floats to parallel with the carb bowl lip. That's definitely not right, so now my engine is most likely running rich. Agh!!

Here's my question, is there any conceivable way to adjust the floats and check the float needles without taking the carbs off the bike? Taking them off was horrible, I thought I was going to rip the boots. I had to have my dad help me get the carbs back on. I'd really like to avoid all that again.

My guess is that carb #2 needs the most adjusting.

Yes, you can work on the carbs without removing them, but you sort of have to set them up to do that.

I chase all the screw holes with a thread chaser, then replace all with allen heads, then use antiseize on the threads. I make sure all gaskets are intact, and put a super thin coat of antiseize on the gasket surface so they come aprt like new every time. I also made some tools for removing jets and getting to the allen screws. There's a photo on the TK22 site in the maintenance section. It also would help to use the tiniest bit of antiseize on the jet threads.

I also make sure the float pins come out easily.

The problem is you will likely have to remove the carbs to do all of this the first time.

blue_ltd wrote: ...carbs... Taking them off was horrible, I thought I was going to rip the boots. I had to have my dad help me get the carbs back on. I'd really like to avoid all that again....

Less horrible with new soft pliable air box hoses.

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Good Fortune!