After the restoration: 14400-mile service [page 2]
Monday, Jan 29, 2007 [13964 miles]
The bike didn't start right away Saturday morning and I noticed gas still dripping from the left carb. Instead of rolling the bike down the hill I took my R1200GS to breakfast and enjoyed a nice ride afterwards. Today I took a closer look at what was going on.
I remove both lever tops. A good look showed that the levers were not adjusted correctly. I suspect that the new needles are slightly shorter than the old. I bent the levers into the proper possition (lever about level with the bottom of the tickle needle when closed) and tried to start the bike again. Much better, only 3 kicks.
The test ride showed the bike to be hesitating off idle. I adjusted the idle air after a short test ride. The bike is idling better. I'll need another test ride to see if I got rid of the hesitation (or made it worse).
Thursday, Feb 15, 2007 [13985 miles]
A week and a half ago I got the bike started with minimal problems. After breakfast, however, the bike did not want to start, even when pushed. Of course, as soon as someone else tried to kick the bike over after I got tired it fired up on his 2nd kick. Anyway, adjusting carbs without adjusting the valves first was kind of dumb, so today I'm going to check the valves as well as revisiting the float level.
The valves on the left side checked out fine. As long as I was there I re-torqued the head and checked the valves again. Still fine. The right side was another story -- not surprising as that head was off the bike this time last year or about 2,000 miles ago. The exhaust was OK, but the intake was tight. I re-torqued that head and set the valves.
As long as I was in the general area of cylinders and heads I checked the cylinder base nuts and renewed the anti-seize on the exhaust nut. One of the base nuts was a touch loose. I also noticed some weepage from the base gasket on the left side of the bike.
Now that the valves are OK I double checked the lever-tops for float level. I slightly tweaked the top for the left carb. I also removed and cleaned the idle air screws, something I did not do when I cleaned the carbs last month. Interesting: the Bing book notes the starting adjustment of 2 turns out from lightly seated. Mine were 3/4 turn on the left and slightly more than one turn on the right. Rich. I set them to 2 turns for now and will adjust them correctly once the bike is good and hot.
That's all for today. More next week, weather permitting.