Sinking Creek 4WD Association

I just got a new [to me] motorcycle in trade today that needs some rehab. Currently has a dead/dying battery which I hope a 12v trickle charger will cure. After that, it supposedly is fine except for carb sync issues. I don't have the mercury tool, nor the know-how to sync carbs...I learned that on my last inline 4 bike. I also don't trust that that is the only problem.

If anyone can help and needs work or help in exchange (turning a wrench or otherwise) that'd be great. If anyone can help and wants money then I hope you charge a cheap hourly rate.

I don't know anything about motorcycles but speedntriple has a salvage motorcycle parts shop if you need parts

I saw that...hoping to minimize the parts that I need and make the most of what I have (ie, spend as little as possible...the way I justified trading to this was that it would cost me less to maintain )

I have a fair amount of Motorcycle knowledge however I don't have much time. You can ask me questions, but I probably won't have time to actually wrench on it.

I hear ya on not having much time...

I got a start on things...got the battery charged and it wouldn't fire. Drained the tank and pulled the carbs. It was like the bowls were filled with apricot preserves. Cleaned them out the best I could and sprayed the crap out of the carbs with carb cleaner and put em back on. Fresh gas and it manged about 4,000RPM before dying. Full choke would rev to high heaven, but as soon as you kill the choke, the bike wants to die.

I assume this means I need to take the carbs back off and perhaps actually tear them down and clean them up? (Was hoping for a simple fix.)

Fork seals are the other thing I'm worried about...got any tips on that job?

Sounds like you need to tear the carbs down and soak them in carb cleaner. I have a gallon with a parts basket if you decide to go that route. The Jets are probably clogged. Check the floats also to make sure they are set right and see if they have any gas inside them. Doesn't sound like it because it would be poring out the over flow tubes on the Carbs.

As for the fork seals. If they are cracked you need to replace. If they are leaking you need to replace. If neither then just drain and flush the fork oil.

Fizboy wrote:Sounds like you need to tear the carbs down and soak them in carb cleaner. I have a gallon with a parts basket if you decide to go that route. The Jets are probably clogged. Check the floats also to make sure they are set right and see if they have any gas inside them. Doesn't sound like it because it would be poring out the over flow tubes on the Carbs.

As for the fork seals. If they are cracked you need to replace. If they are leaking you need to replace. If neither then just drain and flush the fork oil.

Fork seals = lubricating my front brake rotors

As to the carbs, if I pull em off/tear em down, want to PM me what the best way to get em into your gallon of cleaner?

You can barrow it for a while. Let me know when you do the tear down.

Fizboy wrote:You can barrow it for a while. Let me know when you do the tear down.

Looking at a set of carbs on ebay...if I end up with those, I'll probably pop em on and see how they fare and then go from there. If the bidding gets too high on those, or my urge to ride becomes over-powering, then I might just pull my carbs off right soon and go to disassembling one day this week...

Jim's motorcycle shop (in Cburg) quoted me $200 to sync all 4 carbs and adjust the valves on my 1982 CB750. I thought that was pretty reasonable.

If you need any bike work try "Go Race" in Christiansburg. Talk to travis he is the owner and tell him that Stinson sent you.

I took it out to Jims the day I got it just to get him to tell me what he saw wrong.

In a nutshell he summed it up with: "Gonna be opening pandora's box; more trouble than it's worth; not getting out of here for less that $1K, etc" so while he seemed knowledgable and pretty honest, I don't think I can afford for him to tinker on it so long as the job isn't so complicated that I can't give it a shot.

Does "Go Race" have parts? Probably going to tackle as much of the work as I can by myself, but Advanced has an oil filter, no air filter, no fuel filter and had to order the spark plugs...so I'm thinking I need somewhere else to get parts. Ordering a $3.00 fuel filter off the internet and then paying $10 in shipping hurts me too much to do it.

Go Race does have parts, im not sure what bike you have but it sounds like an older in line 4 cyl. Doubt anyone would have much in stock, but he can get you whatever you need. He specializes in suspension, so if you dont want to tackle the forks, he could take care of that. Be cheaper if you pull em and take them to him rather than the whole bike.

Stinson wrote:Go Race does have parts, im not sure what bike you have but it sounds like an older in line 4 cyl. Doubt anyone would have much in stock, but he can get you whatever you need. He specializes in suspension, so if you dont want to tackle the forks, he could take care of that. Be cheaper if you pull em and take them to him rather than the whole bike.

Yep, just left. Didn't have the fuel filter I needed, but he quoted me $80+ parts if I just bring him the forks, not sure what it'd be if I brought him the bike.

Bike is a 92 ZX7.