Carb Sync with Mercury Stix

[Steve_in_Florida]

Threw a set of the shops' mercury carb sync sticks on the `92 yesterday evening. Did it more as an experiment to make certain there was enough mercury in the reservoir.

The settings were a little off, so I got them back in line.

I highly recommend it.

What a huge difference such a little procedure makes to the running of the bike. Now it's scary fast again.

Now I can pass WHOLE HERDS of HD Wilted-Beasts with a single throttle twist. (Might even give a little wave at mach 6+.)

Steve

[Pat Conlon]

Steve, didn't we have a hard time getting my Morgan Carbtune to register when we put it on your bike in Willits?
I recall we had to rev your bike up to 3k rpm before we could balance the columns...

The mercury sticks are much more sensitive ( just don't rev. the engine)...were the carbs that far out of sync?

[Steve_in_Florida]

Pat,
I don't believe that it was my bike we put on the carb tune. I recall watching others struggling with one of the bikes, but don't remember whose. (Was it an `89 white/silver?) It was the first time I had seen a non-mercury setup in person. I recall that the metal rods weren't moving smoothly in their bores or something?

Prior to syncing the carbs yesterday, it just seemed that the engine wasn't running at peak capacity, and had a bit of a hesitation between shifts. We've been using the mercury stix on a couple of other bikes we're working on, and were having issues. I wanted to rule out the fact that there might not have been enough mercury to pull four columns of vacuum. When hooked it to my FJ, I was able to rule out that possibility.

The columns were close, but not the same. A bit of a twist on a couple of the adjuster screws fixed that right up.

Now there's NO hesitation shifting, and the engine's running really smoothly, for a mildly tired engine. (Probably needs fresh rings, and I want to perform a leakdown test to get a lowdown on the valves.) I did a compression check on this engine several months ago, and the results were less than stellar. Not horrible, but not great. (The `90 had better compression results.)

There is definitely a fundamental difference in the running of my `90 and my `92. Both are mostly stock, with the exception of an ignition advance rotor. I have evidence that the `90 might have slotted cam gears. Of the two, the `90 seems to have the more powerful engine.

Steve

[Dan Filetti]

Steve, didn't we have a hard time getting my Morgan Carbtune to register when we put it on your bike in Willits?
I recall we had to rev your bike up to 3k rpm before we could balance the columns...

The mercury sticks are much more sensitive ( just don't rev. the engine)...were the carbs that far out of sync?

Pat,

You may need to clean the stainless steel columns -I read in the instructions that periodic cleaning and maintenance is a good idea of the Carbtune II, anyway.  Thinking I'll call mine home to go through it...

Just a thought,

Dan

[Pat Conlon]

Yep, thanks Dan, it's on my list..

[fj1289]

Didn't know you could clean them!  After setting in an extremely dusty garage for a year they definately don't move as well as they used to