just bought a seca and it is acting weird.

I'll bet you have a two-pronged problem, and I think this symptom right here is the clue to the second "prong." It sounds from this like you've got a hanging carb slide, which means a good cleaning is in order. That, coupled with riding habits that don't keep the battery fully charged is doing you in. A bike with one slide stuck is going to be a bear to start as well.

You also may want to take a real good look at the fusebox, a known XJ Achilles' heel. Replace the fuse clips with similar ones from Radio Shack or retrofit to a contemporary blade-type fusebox.

 

whats your starting procedure ?
cold, choke at full or half and push the button.....no throttle at all
warm, push the button..........no throttle at all

 

Ok, weather has cleared up and I have been given some time to try and work on her. Now she just wont start. Starter makes all the starter sounds but she just will not turn on that beautiful engine of hers. At the moment I am completeyl lost for words on this. Any suggestions?

Oh and is anyone in Reno that would be willing to help me out here. This is a nightmare and a half.

 

Any coughs, or just nothing at all?

Have you checked for spark?

 

Yesterday she coughed once. I was in the process of releasing the throttle and inadvertantly killed any chance of keeping her going. She has not coughed at all since then. I took a key and checked for spark from the 2 outer spark plugs. left one seemed week as I had to actually feel the key to know if I was getting anything but it was there. Right one I could hear the spark.

 

Both of the outer cylinders fire from the left coil. You should check spark on #2 or #3 to make sure the other coil is firing as well.

It's also strange to have differences in spark between two plugs on the same coil unless the plug itself is misgapped, or dirty, or bad. Might try cleaning up that #1 plug.

 

Thanks. I will give it a better look tomorrow.

 

See if it will run on a generous shot of Starting Fluid.
That will "generally" clue you to if its Fuel or Ignition.

If it will Pop on Starting Fluid ... (Just spray some in the Airbox opening) you can work looking for the trouble or start on the Carbs.

 

Polock's got it right.


If you open the throttle with the choke(enrichment) on, it bypass the choke. The choke runs off the idle circuit. As soon as you come off idle, the air/fuel goes through the main jets.
I normally just barely put tension on the throttle cable, but don't open the throttle, full choke, hit the starter. As soon as it fires, I tickle the throttle a bit and back down the choke somewhere between half and full until it will run with no throttle, and let it run for a couple of minutes while I get my gear on. Then I kill the choke and take off.


Just remember the NO THROTTLE when using the choke.

 

i think i have a theory as to why your bike is giving you trouble. its probably because you go to UNR baaahahaha!

 

Thanks for the heads up lopez, I am sure that my choice in a superior school (references recent Cannon game) is part of my karma induced engine problems. LOL.

Thanks c21aakevin and polock for that start up procedure, I am new to this bike so that does help me understand a little more on the choke (enrichment circuit) for this seca. I am still waiting on my manual to arrive.

Rick, Starter fluid has been my primary method during the previous cold start problems. Seems not to be working. I will start fiddling with her when the weather clears up.

 

Ok, on break now from school and have been working on the Seca. With the previous spark issues I have replaced pretty much every aspect of the starter mechanism. Came upon the fact that the ignition coils were bad and replaced them. Now I am getting spark in all 4 spark plugs.


With the screaming that the engine was doing when it got hot, I did a clunk test and the slides were definitely not clunking in right. I replaced them with my friends carb slides and they now clunk properly. Though the 5000 rpm idling seems to still be continuing as when she warmed up it was right back to the screaming again.

She did backfire rather badly yesterday and blew out the cap on my muffler about 6 inches. I will attach a picture of that. The muffler cap has been slid back in to the pipe. Also, the Incident in which this happened with starter fluid as it was not yet starting without fluid. Today starter fluid was used and seemed to catch but the gas didn't seem to ignite. After a number of tries the gas seemed to ignite on its own, no starter fluid needed. and the backfiring seems to be continuing only not as violently.

Any further advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

 

If your slides were not clunking properly and you put your friends slides in and had an improvement, your carbs need a good cleaning. What was restricting your slides will not be specific only to this area, but throughout the carbs. See rickomatics carb cleaning tutorial!

 

I've been where you are, and from everything I've read about your bike, you have crudded-up carbs. There are four separate air/gas circuits inside EACH carburetor, PLUS the rubber vacuum diaphragm has to be intact, PLUS the slides have to be free in their bores, PLUS the float level must be set for each carburetor, PLUS the float valves must be seating properly ...

Do the math: we're up to 32 things that can be worn, torn, clogged dirty, or set imporperly - And any ONE of those 32 things can mean a bike that's tough or impossible to start, gets bad gas mileage, is unpleasant to ride, and may actually be dangerous (do you really want the engine to surge or stall in the middle of a sweeping turn, at speed?)

And there are all these things, on a bike that you know for sure has NOT received proper maintenance through the years. The odds are flat-out against you, man.

There are no shortcuts, there are no spray-can fixes, and no simple 'check this or do that' which can solve your problem. You have to take the carburetors off and completely go through them, per the master RickOMatic and his detailed Old School Carb Cleaning gig.

And realize this: a few decades ago, an engine design with one carburetor per cylinder was the province of Formula-1 racing cars. And now we have this design on our 550cc street bikes, where many have turned more than 50,000 miles with irregular maintenance and are now over a quarter of a century old! It's a technology marvel that these bikes were reliable in the first place - let alone 25 years down the road.

Oh yes, and my other 2-cents: You can never really be sure about rust in the gas tank on these old bikes. Smart money says to add an inline fuel filter between the tank and the carbs. I got one at NAPA auto parts for about $3. It's clear plastic, and over the next few thousand miles, I will KNOW for sure if there's rust in that tank - just by looking at it. Real cheap insurance against more crud going into the carbs.

Keep the faith, and keep us posted on how the project goes.

 

Thanks guys. I got her to work on her, and work on her I shall. I look forward to this carb battle! I am concerned about the backfire earlier though. It was rather violent and sent that cap out of the pipe about 6 inches. Any thoughts on that? It happened while using starter fluid and the gas wasn't igniting at the time.

 

You blew the baffle out when a big cloud of starter fluid flashed in the pipe.

You have to be a bit judicious with starter fluid, imagine what a blast like that at the INTAKE would have done to the rubber manifold! Like an M-80 in a plastic mailbox...

+1 This is the hard truth; there ARE NO SHORTCUTS. You either do it right or keep doing it until you do. THAT can get frustrating; better to just go all-in to begin with. Honest.

 

The carbs the carbs its always the carbs...what Chico Jim and bigfitz said
do it right the first time (hopefully) and don't forget the Throttle Shaft Seals,it works.

 

No short cuts!!
This may seem anal and repeditive but true.
Most of us tried them at some point on something only to have
wasted a lot of time/money.
Think of it this way, one tiny clog in one carb and no matter how
clean the others are it wont run right.
Do it right once and you will be smiling all day.

 

Rehabilitating an Old XJ-Bike to have it deliver peak performance to you is going to be a Multi-Project and Time Consuming endeavor.

You'll have obstacles to overcome during each Phase of restoring the Bike. It's best to tackle them one at a time and begin eliminating the reasons why the Bike won't run.

Replace the Fuse Panel.
Check the Battery's ability to Deep Charge and provide power.

Thoroughly clean your Carbs:
> Fuel Bowl Enrichment Circuit Well
> Siphon Tube
> Jets, Passages and Emulsion Tube
> Flush Passages; Inc. Pilot Mixture Passage
> Re-finish, Clean and Polish "Slide-piston" Bores

Once you are confident that all the Systems are Hunkie-Doorie; you can get-on to addressing the Fine Tuning.

You'll take great pleasure in doing the Fine Tuning after assuring that you've done everything necessary to allow you to Fine Tune and expect the Bike to respond to being Finely Tuned and made to Start quickly and run great.

 

then the carbs it is. Though I am also sure that I had a starter issue. Damned 2 pronged faults. Also, is it possible that the non factory exhaust pipe I have could be messing with my back pressure? All 4 pipes are being routed into the one pipe I attached earlier in the picture.