rings

I just got my bike running after sitting for 22 years.I filled the cyl's up with oil before i stored it. She fired right up after i cleaned the carbs.the pistons only had about 4000 miles on them.Ive put a couple hundred miles on it now and the exhaust seems to blow white smoke a bit.I will do a compression test soon.I was wondering if the rings could have lost there spring after all these years? Or maybe they are stuck in the piston? If there stuck would sea foam be the way to go ?any thoughts?:S

Where do ya guys find those "22 years sitting" -bikes? Wow, 2-400$ bikes luying everywhere :laugh:

About the smoke, I think that

white = lean
black = rich
blue = oil
grey = burn-out:lol:

Hope I´m not way off here:unsure:

I'm curious too.

Interesting ,I'll have to check into the lean idea. The plugs do look black but that could be a diff,rpm range causing that. It does hessatate at low rpm(below 5000)so it could be lean on the idle circut or needle jet.I stored my bike when I got married ,bought a house ,had kids......Now its finaly time for me.:evil:

Mark, I am thinking that before I messed around with the carburetors, I would do a tune up of the bike. Smoke? Could the smoke be from incomplete combustion? Could the incomplete combustion be lack of compression? A real-world reason for low compression is lack of valve clearance. FIRST thing would be to tighten that old cam chain and check valve clearances. There is a little how-to for checking and adjusting valve clearances on my web site... NOW check compression. Pull your plugs and buy a tester that has a rubber tip for press-fitting in the plug holes. Put the tester tip in #1 plug hole, open throttle all the way or take off your carbs and turn the engine over with the starter, if possible. Note compression value. Repeat for #2, #3 and #4 in turn. Then put ONE teaspoon of oil down #1 plug hole and repeat the test, noting the compression. Do the same for each cylinder in turn. DO NOT put oil in all of them at once because if you have the plugs out, you will be wearing the oil! Anyway, once you have the valves adjusted, your compression values will be relevant. The oil used in the 2nd test will seal your cylinders regardless of the condition of the rings so if the value of #1 cylinder is 100 psi dry and 160 with the oil, it is a great indication that your rings are not good. There is another cause for the smoking; perhaps your valve stem oil seals are hardened and leaking some extra oil down the guides? That will cause the bike to smoke some, especially after starting it up. Anyway, baseline your bike by tuning it up and performing some basic checks before you start digging in nilly-willy as adjusting carb jetting WILL NEVER fix compression issues or ignition issues. Cheers!

Thanks George .I just bought a new screw in type compresion guage my old one seems screwed. So I will check it to day.And the vales.This low rpm (below 5000)bog does seem like a carb problem though don't you think?

Post edited by: mark1122, at: 2006/08/28 10:30

I checked the comp and got 143 on #1,2,3&155 on#4,After adding oil I got 170 on 1,2,3 and 185 on #4.I will do a valve clearance check latter as I do not have a spare valve cover gasket,and the head was just rebuilt,a few hundred miles a go but it was also 22years ago.But I will order a new one now.I did a few plug checks and found it is lean in the middle and top, & ok at the bottom.Is #4 cyl trying to tell me some thing ?

Post edited by: mark1122, at: 2006/08/29 17:19

Your compression seems fine. The fact that it bounced up a tad when you added oil is not surprising nor is it out of line. The rings are sealing pretty well.

OK, DO check the valve clearances but at this stage, you can guess that the valves are not being hung open due to lack of clearance. Next step...

Do you have a multimeter? If so, proceed. If not, they are on sale at Harbor Freight this week for $2.99. You can also pick one up at any hardware or autoparts store. Get a digital with big numbers. A digital makes misreading the thing less likely. The best will have a 1X Ohms scale but at this point, that doesn't matter. Anyhow, put your probes on the battery terminals; RED/Positive on the positive battery terminal and the BLACK/Negative on the negative battery terminal. You should read nominally ~12.5 VDC. If you don't then some checking needs to be done or the battery needs to be charged. Now, go to your ignition coils and note that each coil has two little feed wires connected. One will be black on one coil and the green on the other. These are the wires from the ignition. The OTHER wire is power. It will be yellow/red or pink on most Kaws. Turn the key on and put your POS probe on the lug where this wire is connected. Put the NEG probe on any frame ground. The big nuts on the cylinder head studs are a good ground point. You should also read ~12.5VDC here. Report what you are actually reading.

Also, has timing been checked? What is the condition of the ignition system? In other words, the wires, caps, spark plugs, coils, points/condensor or ignitor and pickup coils?

Yes I have a meter and my new bat had 12.7 v this morrning I wore it down a bit doing the compresion test so i put it on the charger this am.New points and cond.old coils .3ohms last month.Forget what i had for volts at the coil I'll check tonightStatick timeing is good but i don't have a timing light anymore.(lent it to someone???).Thought it was odd that #1,2,3 cyl's were lower than #4buy 12psi. ?:side:

Post edited by: mark1122, at: 2006/08/29 17:18

Checked voltage at coil and got 10.35 & 12.55 at the bat.I was riding in the rain last week and it sounded like it was running on 2 cyl's. When I got home I ckecked for spark and all plugs were firing.When it dried out it ran fine. How do I track a problem like that ?Maybe I should repost this in electical ? I think I will.

10.35 VDC at the coils means your spark will be really poor. Go to my web site and read the "coil repowering" page I put up.

Thanks