Rust, carbs, starting, suspension, and petcock questions!

[danisawesome]

(How's that for a descriptive title?)

Alright, I have some questions for you XS masters. Sorry for the wall of text, but any help is appreciated! Also, I don't have my bike at my apartment, or even in the same state as me, so some of these questions I could solve myself but I just don't have my bike to tinker on at the moment!

1. Starting with my tank, it is a tiny bit rusty (already threw some diesel and screws/nuts in there previously) and has been tinting my gas orange. I plan on using some Metal Rescue on it to get rid of the rest of the rust. Should I use some sort of sealer or should I be ok as long as I'm riding and keeping fresh gas in the tank?

2. I'm also going to be pulling my carbs off and going through them again because I'm having problems getting the bike started when it's cold, and also sometimes when it has warmed up and been run. Is there anything I should really be wary of given my tank's rust issues? I only ran about 200 miles before the season was done here and added an inline filter about halfway through.

3. Before adjusting my valves, my mixture was spot on and it would start pretty easily. After adjusting them (the bike is at 9k miles and never had them adjusted) the plugs were reading rich. I got the left side back into an acceptable color by adjusting the pilot screw, but the right side refuses to get dialed in. The exhaust valves on that side are also a little noisy, but I've checked them multiple times and they are definitely in clearance. I'm wondering if that has something to do with my starting issues. Should I be checking the valves again or looking into tuning my carbs once more? Currently I'm running pod filters with 142.5 mains, 42.5 pilots, and I can't recall my pilot screw settings (was 2.5 out initially, now it's something like 2 on the left and 1 on the right or something).

4. I also noticed some surging while maintaining constant throttle at around 3-5k RPMs. I built a manometer and the carbs are synced, so I'm kind of at a loss as to what the cause could be. Do I need to raise the jet needle? I have the non-adjustable one, but I read you can use a stack of washers instead of that big plastic spacer to raise the needle up, but does this richen the mixture?

5. I don't like how low the back suspension has the seat sitting and would like it maybe .5"-1" higher in the rear. The dampening on the rear shocks is on the lowest setting, so would raising that make the rear sag less?

6. I'm preparing to order a chunk of items from MikesXS and on the list is a non-vacuum petcock. Is this the one that will fit our bikes (minus the lever hitting the tank) http://www.mikesxs.net/product/20-0019.html


Alright, I think that is all of the questions I have for the moment! Thanks for any and all help guys!

 

[16VGTIDave]

1) Seal it. Rust never sleeps.
2) Clean the carbs - standard answer.
3) It won't hurt to check the valves again. You are going to have to adjust the carbs again after cleaning them.
4) Surging would be a lean mixture. Get a bunch of very thin washers of the correct size and add just enough of them to get rid of the surging.
5) I believe you are describing the spring preload when you say dampening. If so, then yes, increasing the spring preload will raise the suspension a bit.
6) I can't answer your question, but I have one of my own: If your petcock is working properly and not leaking, why would you want to change it? The vacuum operation is very convenient. And it prevents you from getting a block down the street and having the bike die because you forgot to turn it on. Or having gas dribbling out of the carbs when you forget to turn it off. Just saying...

 

[danisawesome]

1. Personal suggestions for tank sealant? I feel like I've just heard horror stories about Por-15 and Kreem.

2. I'm more so wondering if I should replace anything in the carbs due to rusty gas or if a good ultrasonic and carb passage clean will do the job. When I went through them before, I replaced every seal, o-ring, and other miscellaneous piece I could, minus the butterfly seals which I will be replacing this time.

3. Sounds solid to me!

4. Perfect, that's what I was thinking as well.

5. Yes, that is the term I was looking for! Good to know that will probably do the trick.

6. I rebuilt the petcock and it seems to be working ok, but it doesn't completely stop flowing gas when on the res or on positions. I just figured rather than buying another rebuild kit in hopes that it would fix it, I could just buy a new one and be done with it.

Thanks for the reply! I'm starting a to-do list and this is helping greatly.

EDIT: Forgot one thing! My clutch lever is pretty stiff and engages far out. I've used the adjustment on the case and by playing with the slack in the lever and nothing really helps. I've also run it up to a wall and slipped it for a little bit and it seems to help a tiny bit, but not much at all. Should I look into replacing the discs? My kickstart is also pretty stiff and I have to get a good jump on it to get the engine to turn. Could they be related? I'm not really familiar with that side of the bike yet, so I'm not sure if those parts interact in any way.

 

[16VGTIDave]

EDIT: Forgot one thing! My clutch lever is pretty stiff and engages far out. I've used the adjustment on the case and by playing with the slack in the lever and nothing really helps. I've also run it up to a wall and slipped it for a little bit and it seems to help a tiny bit, but not much at all. Should I look into replacing the discs? My kickstart is also pretty stiff and I have to get a good jump on it to get the engine to turn. Could they be related? I'm not really familiar with that side of the bike yet, so I'm not sure if those parts interact in any way.

Lube your clutch cable or replace it. Also clean and lube the lever and the release mechanism. Then adjust as per the manual. If the clutch isn't slipping under load, I'd be inclined to leave the disks. You may find a different engine oil improves the engagement. When I switched to Rotella T, my clutch smoothed out and shifting noticeably improved.

I can't help you with the kickstart, don't have one of those. I do know that they are easy to break, so don't jump on it or you will be shopping for a new engine case.

 

[arfstrom]

I can't help you with the kickstart, don't have one of those. I do know that they are easy to break, so don't jump on it or you will be shopping for a new engine case.

Okay, from one who has, It was totally my fault, One should not attempt to crank the engine over, without the side cover on. Yup, I did it all right. Ummm, your problem ???? The kick start is tied into the pistons, so try it without the spark plugs in there. Just to see the function is appropriate. That will tell us if the compression is too much, I suppose there is a compression tester you could use. So that will tell us if there is any other weird thing going on. If you kick with the clutch pulled it should free spin, (even with spark plugs in) I suppose worse possibilities, The gearing is going straight from the spring loaded gear, to the clutch gear, to the crankshaft gear. So there is a few possibilities that something could be jacked up with any one of those things. So lets hope not. lets hope its something easy.
Tobie

PS Good luck

 

[danisawesome]

Lube your clutch cable or replace it. Also clean and lube the lever and the release mechanism. Then adjust as per the manual. If the clutch isn't slipping under load, I'd be inclined to leave the disks. You may find a different engine oil improves the engagement. When I switched to Rotella T, my clutch smoothed out and shifting noticeably improved.

I can't help you with the kickstart, don't have one of those. I do know that they are easy to break, so don't jump on it or you will be shopping for a new engine case.

I am looking to replace my clutch cable since it is a little on the long side after installing clipons, so I think I'll just do that and tough it out for now. I lubed it and re-routed the cable to make sure it wasn't doing any extreme bending, but to no avail. And I'll have to try that oil! I didn't even think about that

Okay, from one who has, It was totally my fault, One should not attempt to crank the engine over, without the side cover on. Yup, I did it all right. Ummm, your problem ???? The kick start is tied into the pistons, so try it without the spark plugs in there. Just to see the function is appropriate. That will tell us if the compression is too much, I suppose there is a compression tester you could use. So that will tell us if there is any other weird thing going on. If you kick with the clutch pulled it should free spin, (even with spark plugs in) I suppose worse possibilities, The gearing is going straight from the spring loaded gear, to the clutch gear, to the crankshaft gear. So there is a few possibilities that something could be jacked up with any one of those things. So lets hope not. lets hope its something easy.
Tobie

PS Good luck

Hahaha I will definitely make sure not to crank it over without the side cover on

It does move freely when I pull the clutch lever with or without spark plugs, but I can't recall how it behaved when the plugs were removed and not touching the lever. I want to say there was still a bit of resistance, which led me to believe that it may have something to do with my clutch discs and springs or the adjustment.

Hopefully I will get the chance to poke around a little bit in a couple weeks because I really want to get this stuff sorted, and I'm also picking up some rearsets so I want to start getting stuff fabbed up for those as well! Excited!