Allan's restoration issues

[ribbert]

  .......Engine turns over but no spark happening.  My guess is that therre is no petrol flowing from the tank through the carbies to provide a spark to start it.
Al

Allan, that is a bit of a mixed message.

Do you have a garage with lighting? I can probably come down Thursday evening and see if I can help. It seems so tantalisingly close, let me know if that suits.
If you have PM's sorted out on the forum you can contact me via that or text or ring me on 0417353464 or email me at noellangmead@yahoo.com.au

Noel

[Mark Olson]

Unclear on what you found.

Is there fuel in the bowls?
Did you remove a spark plug wire and visually check for spark?

On the 84 do you have to pull the clutch lever in when starting?

Is your side stand switch operational ?

Is the vacuum line attached to the petcock for fuel flow?

[Allanl]

Hi guys,  thanks for all the advice,  yes I am close,  checked everything again as per the above, fuel in the bowls choke full on hit the start button. .... after several dozen attempts the beast roared into life albeit for 15 seconds... at   least I know it will start now... unfortunately I can't seem to repeat the process and get more run time out of her... I now just seem to running the battery flat and annoying the neighbors and the wife!
Any thoughts?

Cheers Al

[ribbert]

Hi guys,  thanks for all the advice,  yes I am close,  checked everything again as per the above, fuel in the bowls choke full on hit the start button. .... after several dozen attempts the beast roared into life albeit for 15 seconds... at   least I know it will start now... unfortunately I can't seem to repeat the process and get more run time out of her... I now just seem to running the battery flat and annoying the neighbors and the wife!
Any thoughts?

Cheers Al

The symptoms you describe could be fuel not entering the carbies at the same rate it is being consumed, it is possibly running out of fuel.


Noel

[Allanl]

Hi Noel, good thinking,  I didn't put a lot in to start with as I didn't want a fire if anything went wrong. I will put some more in and see what happens. I will let you know what happens.
Al

[Allanl]

Put in another 4-5 litres on fuel and kicked it over again. Sounded more promising unti I noticed fuel been dumped all over the driveway.  Had a look and it seems to be coming from the bottom of the engine? Not sure why checked the fuel lines and petcock all seem to be dry of fuel no leaks there... back to the drawing board

[Mark Olson]

Well it started 

Possible that fuel is coming out of hoses for fuel bowl overflow. You may have bad floats that can sink and flood carbs .
Also lots of crap in fuel causing needle and seat not to meter fuel flow.
I hope fuel stopped leaking after you shut the engine off. Are you using your fuel tank or an aux tank?

[Allanl]

Hi Mark,  yes as soon as I stopped trying to start it the fuel stopped flowing, thank goodness.  I am using the main tank as my fuel source so as you can imagine trouble shooting becomes a bit of a pain.

[FJools]

are any of the fuel  connections between carbs loose or leaking ?

[Allanl]

Dont seem to be, I cant see anything that jumps out at me

[Allanl]

Looks like one of the  overflow hoses is dumping out a ton of fuel when the bike is trying to start. Looks like something is stuck open so the fuel has know where to go but out the hose.  I have tried giving the bowls a bit of a tap to see if that helps but no such luck. Any other tricks I can try before I rip the tank off again?

[Mark Olson]

No tricks that will work in your situation , with the bike not being ridden in so long I would not recommend trying to ride it out and bounce it around. jump off curb while accelerating. That trick used for normally operating FJ . Yours has been out of service for a bit.

I would recommend identifying which hose and trace to the carb that is leaking. That way you know where to look for the problem in the needle and seat or float height or as I mentioned before sometimes the floats themselves will crack and fill with gas inside themselves and sink to the bottom of the fuel bowl causing the needle not to seat.

You will have to remove the float and shake it and listen for the slosh. then submerge the float in gas so it just covers the top and see if it sinks or fills up with gas.
If the float is ok then is the height set correctly and the needle undamaged and seat clear of debris. 

[FJools]

Yeah,

9 years of stale fuel residue in there..............I am reckoning on a strip and ultrasonic clean may be the way to go

[Urban_Legend]

Hi Al

Don't give up.

It took me and a (knowledgeable) friend a whole weekend to sort out the carbs on my 84 FJ. Had the carbs off about a dozen times (go real good at it). We cleaned, adjusted floats, changed jets and still couldn't get consistent life out of the bike. It kept fowling up the plugs. in the end the fix was simple, we fitted the original plugs that the bike had in when I got it. The difference was the old plugs were in a hotter temp range. All of the sweat and swearing was worth it to here that sweet 4 kick into life and idle. Who Bloody Ray. That is worth a beer.

Mark

[mr blackstock]

G'day,

When I first got my FJ1100 I had to clean the carbs three times before I got them right, this bike is VERY particular about carb cleanliness.  If you do not know where the emulsion tube is, do some research in the carb files as they are very helpful.  Only on the third attempt did I clean the emulsion tube.
If the overflow pipes leak petrol after a good clean, the carb seats and needle will need replacing, the ones that attach loosely to the float.
And safety wire your petcock...

cheers, Gareth