turtle's bike

well, i have a few things to ask about

first off is electrical

i have either a short or a bad relay and i can decide which it is. when i am riding my bike, it will just shut off power, the neutral switch and the tail light stays on, but the ignition system and the starter have no power what so ever.
for a while i could just take the seat off and unplug the relay by the left rear blinker (popping it into and out of socket to make it click) and that would get her going again.
what is that relay?? that is the starting circuit relay or the side stand relay?


the next few questions pertain to the carburetors...
my idle screw is all the way out (i can hold it in my hand) and my idle will stay at 2k rpm.
it started doing this after i attempted to sync the carburetors. (the idle its smoother now)
some times, it will idle at 1.5k, but once it warms up it goes back up to 2k.
i have sprayed flammable liquid around the carburetor boots and carburetors, the rpms neither raised to lowered
i need to check the plugs and get a reading off of them (which i am about to go do)



any ideas?

 

Turtle, can't help you on the electric but on the carb issue, if you had your carbs off, did you bench synch them before you reinstalled. If not check the FAQ suggestion forum there is a bench synch how to in there that will tell you all you need to know. Also, lots of other carb related how to's.
Gregg

 

no, i synced them on my bike while running (time consuming)

felt like it gave it more power

they are withing 1inch of vacuum to each other

 

I assume, you vac synch'd them on the bike. I may be wrong but, I believe for the vac synch to be accurate you must bench synch first. Guys, correct me if I'm wrong. You need an accurate base starting point for synching the carbs, bench synching gives you that base.

 

Unhook the cable completely to make sure its not holding the carbs open.
Joe

 

I say fuse block but what do I know I'm a noooooob

 

turtle, so we can help you and not send you down a rabbit hole chasing the wrong problem can you provide a little more detail about what you did and why?

important things like did you physically remove any part or the entire carb asembly during the sync?
and other important factors like what it was doing before that made you want or need to sync them.

it sound like to me what started as a weekend tweek to the bike is turning into the school of carburators (dont worry plenty of us already have our Doctrine on the XJ's regardless of wether we wanted it or not)

 

glad you do have the doctrine

i could hear that one cylinder was firing harder or less that the other three
you know that dadadapa dadadapa sound

i believe is was the #4 carb that was to high

so sync them i got a reading off of the #3 carb then set the #4 carb
got the reading back off of the #3 and went to #2
back to #3 for reading and then went to #1

i did not mess with the jetting
when i took the plugs out a few minutes ago they where pretty wite, more wire than i like to see but there was still some brown on them (except for the #2 which i believe has a stuck float [my next project], it was black)

at idle all of my carbs should be running 21-22 inches of vacuum

nothing was removed, screws where turned and that's it

 

i have another electrical problem

when starting my bike its cranks over quickly, but will not start until i let off the start button

if i am lucky enough to let off at the right time it will start right up

seems like the starter is taking all of the power and the coils do not get enough

maybe time for a new battery of maybe install resistors in the starters wiring?

 

Right, if your battry is spent it can have enough juice to turn the bike over but, not enough to fire.
I would check the generator first to see if it is charging.
With the rpm's above 2K check the voltage across the battery.
It should be 14.5v.
Let us know how you make out.

 

ding-ding-ding Bob, tell the man what he's won!

I would not have believed this particular phenomenon had I not experieced it for myself. When it happened to me, the motor was spinning PLENTY fast enough to start, but NO SPARK. While checking for spark, I noticed it sparking as soon as I released the button.

It's a peculiarity of the TCI ignition. I've NEVER had a car do that ever. Most of my previous bikes were kick-starters.

FULLY charge your battery, install new plugs. See what you get.

 

... your going to kill me

previous owner messing with the wiring NEAR THE FUSES...


yea, the fuse of the red wire under the seat was corroded inhibiting flow
brushed it off and put dielectric grease on it and she started firing while starter was running

fuse block is my next mod, along with fixing up the "patches" made by the previous owner


i am still lost on the carbs though

 

so about the carbs that don't like to let the bike go under 2k rpm unless they are cold

my bike starts really easy when cold out, probably more easy than once its warmed up. do you think that the pilot system needs enriched?

 

I would agree with Daplumma.
I bet your throttle cable is not allowing the throttle to close all the way.
IF the idle screw is pulled out, and they are close to snyced, that's the only explaination I can think of.
OR something else is binding on the throttle shafts and keeping them from closing.

From the sounds of it you are also very lean which can do weird stuff also.

Also check the choke cable and make sure they are completely closed.
Mine had a "high idle" one morning. About 10 miles later I realized I didn't close the choke after I left it warm up while I took the garbage cans up to the house.