Little trip to Pescadero after working
Friday, I get to zip out the door at 2:20pm. So off to the coast I go.
I had a blast on Hwy 84. Oddly, my favorite part was a little down from Alice’s / 4 corners towards the bay / San Mateo side believe it or not. Downhill or uphill I was just RAILING some of those turns. I probably got pretty close to grinding my knee on some of the extreme left handers downhill there.
I rode the typical 92 to Half Moon Bay, I would love to live life there.
I cruised out towards Mavericks break ‘cuz I almost thought I could see some breakers coming up Rt 1 and saw this locked up in a industrial area which I thought was quite cool (I am a surfer). Gotta be Jeff Clark’s old rig and old advertising vehicle for his Mavericks Surf Shop.
The coast was very peaceful to my soul as it always is. It was quite windy today, especially when I looped back north from Pescadero back to 84. I would not want to ride without ear plugs it was so extreme today.
This was a gorgeous view off Rt 1 on “Stage Road” short cutoff to the San Gregorio general store on 84.
I love this tall wall of greenery on the right, felt like I was back in Ireland!
As I was heading up 84 back towards home base, it started to rain a little bit. I was kind of pissed b/c wunderground rated it as a 0% chance of rain until late late night. Grr… but i rode fast and rode ahead of the rain. Phew. It did slow me a bit in some of the corners heading up to Skyline and 4 corners, but that road is such a joy. And after a hard 4 day week it was definitely the right call to get out to the coast and feel the surrounding ocean wash over my being. Very balancing for me, I’m a water sign Scorpio in need!
The very pretty lookout at Pescadero. Farthest point I rode south today, my usual stop.
San Gregario beach just next to the 84 and Route 1 intersection looking back at Rt 1.
Riding back up 84 towards Alice’s, there’s very cute little ranches here. It makes me dream…
Posted in Uncategorized by green
Fixed fuel leaking issue, cleaned carbs again 51600 mi
51600 miles.
Spent today rebuilding the carbs again. 12:30pm – 7:20pm which included full clean up and re-assembly of donor carb banks too. Not bad, and the fix worked!
I got a 4 pack of float bowl gaskets after I had cleaned out the carbs two and half years ago. I got them because I developed fuel leaks on two carbs after re-installing the old ‘flatted’ gaskets.
Unfortunately I could only access 2 of the 4 bowls with the carbs mounted on the bike and only did those. After FINALLY getting Green Magic to both start and run well I did not want to go through pulling off the tank, airbox, and carbs again if there was any way at all to avoid it.
So in those 2.5 years what happened? Well the other two un-replaced older gaskets would dry out and in shrink a bit in cold weather and four times I was greeted with horrible fuel leaks about 4 times at least on a morning start up if the bike sat 2-4 weeks.
Had a job on Sunday to get to, but the volume of fuel pouring out grounded me and the bike. A fix was a requirement at this point.
I knew this mechanical harbinger of death was stalking my motor because of this very issue (so to speak).
I had also thought I had a sticking float needle or float needle seat issue as well, and leaking fuel into the motor and the oil. However, the oil has always looked fine, doesnt smell of gas, my fuel level doesnt really go down and my oil level doesnt ever change. Still I had been worried, because I think on occasion Green Magic suffers from hydro locking and doesn’t want to start.
Other mechanical observations:
I took out spark plug #2 and #1. Their appearance after nearly 10,000 miles was excellent. Just what it should be and not wet with fuel etc…
I also hit the starter button briefly with each plug out to see if fuel would shoot out of the open cylinder hole. None did. Phew!! Here’s spark plug #1 and #2 below as noted with fingers, and their condition after 8000ish miles.
I taped up a few nicks in the upper airbox hose with duct tape.
The pilot jets were clear and clean. The main jets were clear as well, as were the emulsion tubes and the float needles and seats. The float bowls were quite clean as well, I was very surprised about that. I was very happy with the condition of the carbs after this amount of time. Also, none of the float needles were stuck or sticking in the seats, they all moved easily and freely.
I soaked the main jets, the pilot, the emulsion tubes anyway for 45 + minutes in the Evinrude marine tuner product (hardcore carb cleaner).
Sprayed them all out with brake cleaner too.
I sprayed out the pilot air jets passageways several times with cleaner and brake cleaner (which weren’t clogged this time around), the main jet air jet holes, and the mixture screw passageways too.
I did notice that what seems to be the air tubes for the choke – the smallest brass holes on the pilot air jet side were all gummed / plugged up. EDIT: Upon reflection and some research these are in fact the ‘starter jet’ or really the choke ‘enricher’ circuit tube. This tube sips up extra fuel and adds it to the mixture for cold starts when the choke slides are pulled and more fuel can pass through the end of these into the Venturis. Their output is the small hole off center just below the butterflies.
I inserted carefully a twistie tie into these ‘starter jet’ holes and wriggled them around to clean them and shot the carb cleaner and brake cleaner in those holes too. I had not done that before I don’t think as I wasn’t aware it was an narrow opened tube. Hoping that this will make starting easier! GM has been getting a little fussier starting gradually over the past 2.5 years.
Posted in Uncategorized by green