Carbs and starter questions!

Ok guys here is where I stand on trying to get my girl up and running. She's an 82 Maxim XJ650. Let's start with the starter.

The start button quit working on my bike late in the season last year. sometimes it would kick, sometimes it wouldn't, and then it just quit working altogether. The solenoid clicks everytime I push the button so I pulled the starter and did a bench test by jumping it (Red to terminal, Black to body). It hesitated but slowly began to turn for a few seconds (was kind of jerky). Still connected I turned the arbor and it spun a little faster and a little longer. It spins pretty freely so I know It's not seized up and it's not grinding or anything like that. Could this be the brushes?? If not any ideas???

Now on to the carbs. I bought 4 rebuild kits and installed the float needle, float needle retainer, and gasket. Had a couple issues and it wouldn't start (Keep in mind...no starter been push starting it). After many trips up and down the drive way nothing. Didn't even sound like it was trying. So out come the carbs, taken apart to make sure I didn't pull a rookie mistake like not having the spring on the float, or having the floats upside down. Everything looked good. Slapped it back together and nothing. Still won't start. So back in the garage, and back out they come. Take them apart, cuss a little, check everything again, and put them back in.

During this last install the order of the boots from my airbox got mixed up. didn't feel like searching for the right order (If you know this, that would be helpful too), so I decided to just try to start it without them on. Glory to God it started, and I ran it around the block. It had a lot of hesitation and everytime I turned the choke off it died. Would this be because i had open carbs and it was getting to much air? I never took anything off the carbs but the float bowl so I shouldn't need to sync them right? Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read my long ass post. Have a great day brothers!!

Jester

 

You need to properly individually wet-set your float levels. This is a very critical adjustment to a very fine tolerance (3mm range.)

Then you need to go back and remove a whole bunch more than just the float bowls, thoroughly clean the carbs, be sure all the passages, jets and emulsion tubes are clean and clear and do a bench sync.

Then, you return them to the bike. After ensuring that your valve clearances are in spec, you do a running vacuum sync with YICS blocked.

It also sounds like you need to pull the starter down and clean it.

 

You're really busy to day Fitz!!

 

Yeah let's see what good it did.

Float levels are as important as valve clearances in how an XJ runs; but the perceived difficulty of those simple but nonetheless critical operations leaves folks chasing their tails trying everything they can think of before they actually get serious and do it right.