Carb boots: am I getting screwed?

Sounds like typical (BikeShop)Experience to me.

Hi Sean,

"I took it to a local bike shop specializing in classic bike, especially Kaws."

Shops like these exist to serve owners with just too much money. I've met restorers who will only take work that has no budget and no schedule. Sounds like your shop works on a similar system.

Even with an appointment for service most members here have learned that small unforeseen parts problems often add weeks to a repair.

At this point I suggest that you let them have their way and count it as a lesson learned.

KZCSI

Post edited by: KZCSI, at: 2007/08/30 09:13

beleive me hes not only on my christmas card list he's also on my bring him a cold six pack of coors light list everytime i stop by:laugh:

most of these collectors that want their old kaws restored to factory specs have the money to blow on it anyway. for us common day to day riders this simply isn't the case. try to learn most of this stuff and do it yourself (like i am attempting to do!). it will save you money and headaches later. good luck.

This place isn't a restoration shop at all. It's more like an indoor classic motorcycle junkyard; they just have more old Kaws than anything else.

I still don't have it back, by the way.

The question is... are all those old kaws sitting around theirs for parts or... other customer's bikes they have not gotten to yet either?

That's just horrible service and I'd never take something to them again.

Good luck to you though, get that bike back while there's still some riding season left.

Who is a good mechanic in the dallas/ft.worth area?

Update:

Well, I got Millie the Mileage Miser back today! Yay!

Well, maybe not.

I get to the shop, and there she is, sitting out front. I start her up. Even though it's 85 degrees out, it takes full choke. She starts, but, there a good bit of popping and backfiring. I take the choke off after a minute or so, and she dies. Won't start back up without choke.

Run her for a minute more, begin backing the choke off. At about half choke, the idle goes up to 3500 rpm. Back the choke off some more and it wants to die. settle it back in at 1/2 choke and it goes back to 3500 rpm. I'm not overly concerned, I've seen a lot of discussion on here about how cold natured these bikes are.

As I'm messing with it, the guy who worked on it comes out. He says it runs like "a scalded dog" (it's a Southern thing). He taps on the tach at the redline and says if I want it to run "up here", I need another 150 in parts. I ask him a few questions and get from him that the Mac pipe and aftermarket air cleaner pods necessitate modifying/changing the carb slides to get the max potential out of it in the upper rpm ranges. I'm not really clear on what he's getting at, he's on and off of his phone through the whole conversation, and I am running out of time, I have to be at work in less than two hours.

There's a set of points in a bag on the seat. I ask if he put new points in. He said no, that those were on the backing plate, they looked good, and he thought I might be able to use them. I guess he replaced the backing plate when he fixed the cam tensioner? I couldn't get a clear idea, as he was on the phone.

I drove the bike home. It ran like crap at first, but smoothed out after it warmed up. That is, until I opened it up. It pulls great up until 5500 rpm, then it misses and backfires like crazy. I guess that's what he was referring to when he told me about needing to modify the slides for upper rpm performance?

I rode it to work and back, and it seems fine under regular driving conditions. It idles high (2700-3000 rpm), but, other than that, it seems OK.

When we were discussing the points, I asked about changing over from points to electronic ignition. He said I should, especially since I have mismatched coils on the bike (something I noticed, myself), and need to replace at least one of them.

Does the awful 5000+ rpm performance sound more like carb, or ignition? Also, does what he said about needing to modify the slides for my pipe and pods make any sense? He said sometiume in the past, someone had put the correct jetting in for the pipe and pods, but didn't say what jets they were.

Does any of this make sense?

Post edited by: seanof30306, at: 2007/09/07 05:53

First of all,get a good set of coils and
a Dyna S ignition.With the supplied instructions
they are easy to install.A set of plugs & wires,
then you know you are fine on the ignition side
of the equation.Your slides are fine.If it still
acts up in the 5000 rpm and higher range it is
most likely a main jet issue.I would start with
125s.

Sounds like a problem I had with my 78 KZ650 B. After wasting a week on fuel lines and stuff I took my father's advice and changed points and condensers. Solved the problem right away. Seeing as you actually have a new set of points/condensers anyway, replacing them would be free (my favourite price). While you're at it, have a look at your centrifugal timing advance behind the point plate - if it's sticking, that might be a cause for high rpm problems. Dare I suggest you take it back to the shop and politely ask them to install the points that you paid for, and that they spent extra time removing from the new point plate you bought?

Always best to look to the cheap fix first; sometimes you get lucky. New coils might be on your XMas wish list, but seeing as you probably dropped big bucks on the repair shop, maybe a good idea to eliminate the small stuff first.

Sounds like the bike shop did more harm than good. The engine should run smoothly from 900 RPM to 9000 RPM. If your bike won't idle under 2700 - 3000 RPM, it's not idling, period. If it won't run smoothly above 5000 RPM you're missing the main part of your powerband. In other words, instead of a 900 - 9000 RPM range your engine has a 3000 - 5000 RPM range. I wouldn't ride it at all until I solved the problem. I suggest that your carbs are still a problem, but I sure as heck wouldn't let that shop touch them again. They shouldn't need to modify anything and clearly don't have a clue about tuning engines if they can't even make yours idle! Maybe Wiredgeorge can give some advice on this (pilot circuit?) At the very least I would get a manual and start checking all the normal tune-up stuff (timing advancer, points, plugs, carbs, valve clearances, etc.) Once you've ensured those things are within spec, I'd test the coils, clean the carbs and ensure that the shop didn't screw up the jetting, etc. I wouldn’t bother returning to the shop as it is clear that they are incompetent and don't care about customer service. You say this shop is like an indoor classic motorcycle junkyard, I wonder if the bikes got that way AFTER these idiots worked on them. Ed

Philip Meaney wrote:

Seeing as you actually have a new set of points/condensers anyway, replacing them would be free (my favourite price). While you're at it, have a look at your centrifugal timing advance behind the point plate - if it's sticking, that might be a cause for high rpm problems. Dare I suggest you take it back to the shop and politely ask them to install the points that you paid for, and that they spent extra time removing from the new point plate you bought?

Always best to look to the cheap fix first; sometimes you get lucky. New coils might be on your XMas wish list, but seeing as you probably dropped big bucks on the repair shop, maybe a good idea to eliminate the small stuff first.

The points aren't new. During the time he was "working" (hack, hack, cough, cough) on the bike, the guy told me he'd found out the cam tensioner was frozen up. From what he said when I was there picking it up, some screws and/or bolts were frozen up in the point plate. I'm guessing he noticed that when repairing the cam tensioner and took a plate off of a parts bike they have at the shop. My bike had been tuned up (new plugs, NGK wires, points, condenser, etc.) less than 200 miles before the previous owner parked it last fall. I'm guessing the guy working on it this time saw the points and condenser were virtually new and installed them on the used plate, giving me the points and condenser off that plate as spares, as they appear to be in good condition.

This is clearly a complicated issue. I fought like hell with them over the bill when I picked the bike up, and got them to knock close to 200 bucks off of it, but, I still feel I was overcharged by at least a hundred bucks. I was just out of time, and couldn't fight any longer. There is no way I'm going to just walk away from them after paying so much for what is, most probably, shoddy work on their part.

Several of the replies so far have pretty definitively answered the question of whether rejetting alone on properly working carbs should be successful on my bike, and I've seen plenty of posts on here from people who have similar exhaust and induction mods to mine and have been able to get them running well through rejetting without having to do further mods, so I believe that issue is settled. I'm sure the fight with them over it, though, has just begun.

To be fair, it's possible that the problem could be ignition-related. Before I can go back to the shop and insist they make their work right, I think I have to either correct any ignition problems or eliminate them from the list of likely suspects, although I can't understand why they wouldn't have diagnosed them while they were looking at my bike and had it apart.

In another thread, I saw where wiredgeorge said you couldn't really begin to diagnose a carb problem till you were sure the pods were clean. Mine are

Looking back at the ignition, before I ever took the bike to the shop, I noticed that the coils were mismatched. So, that brings me to:

Question #1: How do I determine what the correct voltage from the coils should be, and verify that the coils are putting that out?

I have some experience with cars, but, every time I've run across a coil problem, it had died on me. It's either worked, or it hasn't.

I've seen the page on WiredGeorge's site about the coil mod, but, I' thinking I should first verify that the coils are a) working properly, and b) putting out the correct voltage. Does that make sense?

My long range plan is to swap over to an electronic ignition. If I have to replace the coils now, I want to do so with that goal in mind, if not just going ahead and doing the ignition swap. What's the best solution; electronic now, or new points and condenser? All of my cars have had electronic ignitions, how do you test a condenser, anyway? if the smart choice is to go electronic now, which ignition/coils would be best, and where do I get them at the best price?

As far as testing the ignition advance, if this were my Firebird, I'd just put the timing light on it and rev it up. It has 6 degrees of initial advance, and 34 degrees, total. It's easy to see. I have no idea how to do it on my Kaw. I have a Klymer manual, but, it's at my buddy's who initially helped me get the regulator fixed and every single light bulb on the bike but one replaced.

The next logical step to me is to check the resistance on the plug wires and pull the plugs. I looked at them before I took the bike to the shop, and they looked pretty good. Clearly pretty new and gapped properly.

Beyond that, where else would I look for ignition problems?