Carb or Valve Problem...PLEASE HELP?

[Blurrman]

I have a 1986 FJ1200 that i bought and was running great.  I recently put a Vance and Hines header on it and it was still working great but i figured it would be running a little lean so i planned on changing the jets.  I also planned on checking the valves to see how they were while i had the tank off.  Heres where the problem began.

I did the valves and found that alot of them were too tight so i changed the shims and got them as close as i could.  I then took the breather box off and found that a mouse had made a nest in it...lol  It was full of insulation and bird feathers.  I cleaned it out.  Then i looked at the carbs and there was a ton of gunk in the float bowl...surprised it ran with all that gunk but  the bike would do 260kmph no prob and had tons of acceleration.

So....I cleaned it all out but accidentally broke the float bowl rod holding the float on (trying to get the pins out).  I then got a carb off a 1985 FJ1100 and put all my jets in and cleaned it out.  I also verified the float levels were good for a 1986 and that that all the rubber inlet stubs and breather box connections were tight.  On the 1985 carbs someone had drilled out the mixture screw plugs so i made sure that they were all out 2 full turns and checked my 1986 carbs and they seemed the same.

Now the bike runs like crap...the plugs are really black and wet.  The bike runs with the choke on but when i take it off the bike will eventually stall.  I tried playing with the mixture screws, turning them out and in some turns while the bike is running but to no avail.  I am trying to get some vaccum guages to check carb sync but i am feeling that maybe thats not the problem.  Inspection of all the vaccum lines and carb hoses seems good.  I have no idea.  Could the valves be out and causing this problem? Help please.  I dont know what to do.... The jets are 40 for a pilot, 160 for the Main Air and 112.5 for the Mains and everything appears to be fine with the carbs but it runs really rough.  When i give it a crack just after letting the choke off it revs up pretty good but still...something isnt right.  PLEASE HELP ME...this is driving me nuts.

PS- I never did get to change the needle but it looks ok upon inspection and the specs say the needle is the same from the 1985 carb to the 1986...that and the floats are the only thing i never changed up from the 86 to the 85.

[FJTillDeath]

kmph? What area are you from?

Oh and give an intro to everyone so we can find out a bit more about you,

Otherwise the godfathers will soon be here with excellent advice although it may be the floats, I remember when I had a problem with my bike the floats and needle were stuck to open(the bike was knocked onto its side) and petrol was leaking and so on. The sound that came from the bike with just 1 stuck float was horrendous, it was low on power etc. When I had got the floats right the bike purred and all was well. So maybe if more than 1 float were set in the wrong position or didnt match the needles it would feed less power to the engine causing the bike to bog down without choke. I am probably wrong but the guys will chime in soon

[Blurrman]

I'm from Canada.  One more thing i wanted to meation was that the bike sounds like its missing...

[FJTillDeath]

Check your spark plugs and make sure they are covered correctly. Also check and make sure that all pipes under the fuel tank (i think there are 2) one for the fuel and I think the other is a breather that connects to something as well. I remember when I forgot to connect the breather it sucked in air which made it misfire a lot. also when I hadnt covered the spark properly it was misfiring

You say the plugs are black and wet. So I would start there and replace them all. Also make sure that no fuel or oil pisses on them

[Blurrman]

I checked the plugs to see if they all had spark and they do.  The connections are all good. and the #1 and #2 cylinders have the vaccum lines that go to the TCI unit and one goes to the fuel petcock.  Aside from the fuel line...nothing else is connected to the carb...all the other lines are just vent lines i believe and none of those are blocked or kinked.

I can definitely change the plugs out for new ones.  Would the valves be doing this if they arent right on?  When you say cover the spark plugs do you mean make sure they have good cap connections? 

On another side note....the #4 plug looks ok compared to the rest...

[FJTillDeath]

I checked the plugs to see if they all had spark and they do.  The connections are all good. and the #1 and #2 cylinders have the vaccum lines that go to the TCI unit and one goes to the fuel petcock.  Aside from the fuel line...nothing else is connected to the carb...all the other lines are just vent lines i believe and none of those are blocked or kinked.

I can definitely change the plugs out for new ones.  Would the valves be doing this if they arent right on?  When you say cover the spark plugs do you mean make sure they have good cap connections? 

On another side note....the #4 plug looks ok compared to the rest...

Yes the connections is what I meant, if its none of the things I have mentioned the I cant be of any help and if the valves arent correctly on I should think it may cause some problems. Its like having carbs that arent synced correctly, so check your fittings, make sure your seals are still fine and check if the carbs are synced correctly, if not it can skrew with the idle mixture and maybe cause the bike to run lean. Otherwise the other guys will soon chime in. As I mentioned I don t know much and what Ive mentioned is stuff I have picked up from them

[SlowOldGuy]

Yo South Africa (do you have a name?)

SLOW DOWN!  You're turning this into a social site which is NOT helping anyone.  

Unless you have a good understanding of the person's problem, stop just spouting stuff you've read.  Again (see your other thread) you're already injecting noise into this guy's problem.  I don't want to have to spend 30 minutes sorting through crap to try to help someone.

Get over to the sidelines and learn a few more things first.

Sorry to be so blunt, but rattling off a bunch of random guesses and blowing this up into another 3 pages is helping no one. 

DavidR.

[oldktmdude]

Yo South Africa (do you have a name?)

SLOW DOWN!  You're turning this into a social site which is NOT helping anyone.  

Unless you have a good understanding of the person's problem, stop just spouting stuff you've read.  Again (see your other thread) you're already injecting noise into this guy's problem.  I don't want to have to spend 30 minutes sorting through crap to try to help someone.

Get over to the sidelines and learn a few more things first.

Sorry to be so blunt, but rattling off a bunch of random guesses and blowing this up into another 3 pages is helping no one. 

Well said, David. Exactly what I was thinking but you put it a lot better and far more politely than I would have.

[SlowOldGuy]

Blurrman,

Are all the plugs black and wet?  If so, then you're getting too much fuel.  Could be a needle seat or a bad float.  First things first and a little more background. 
Are you sure the valves are done correctly? 
Did it run well after you cleaned the mouse out or before you stored it?
Did you only swap one carb?
Did you completely disassembly the carbs for cleaning, or just spray out the float bowls?
What are the symptoms when it stalls after closing the choke?

DavidR.

[Blurrman]

Blurrman,

Are all the plugs black and wet?  If so, then you're getting too much fuel.  Could be a needle seat or a bad float.  First things first and a little more background. 
Are you sure the valves are done correctly? 
Did it run well after you cleaned the mouse out or before you stored it?
Did you only swap one carb?
Did you completely disassembly the carbs for cleaning, or just spray out the float bowls?
What are the symptoms when it stalls after closing the choke?

DavidR.

Slowguy, thanks for taking the time.  I'll put this in point form so its easier.

1)All the plugs are pretty black and one is wet.  I am not sure if they are wet because of using the choke so much or not.
2) i checked the valves like 15x before i made any changes.  I was pretty sure they were spot on.
3) i never ran the bike after i discovered the nest in the breather box.  After i changed the exhaust i planned on re-jetting because the plugs were getting a little white . When i seen the nest i just assumed that bigger jets were going to make it run richer and cleaning out the nest would make it la little leaner.  Maybe i should have stopped and ran it a little bit with the breather cleaned out but thats hindsight i guess.
4) i cleaned out the carnbs all together, removing all the jets and neeleds etc.  The only thing i didnt do was take off the floats because the pin holding the floats on is siezed in there pretty good.
5)The symptoms of the bike after were that it would run with choke but when i took the choke off it slowly idled down to a stall.

I was planning tonight to re-check the valves again.  Something must be off and it could be just that.  I also got/made a sync guage that i was gonna use to check the sync of the carbs to make sure they are all ok...just to rule everything out i guess.  I also got new plugs that i want to put in to ensure that the plugs arent fouled up in any way.  Its gotta be the valves that are off.  Would that cause this all?  Hopefully it hasnt damaged anything permanently...?

Thanks again for your time !

[Arnie]

Blurman,

It is very unllikely you have damaged anything permanently. 
The valves are probably either correct or close enough that they won't be the cause of your current difficulty.
On engines that use a "wasted spark" ignition, (where the plug fires at TDC on both compression and exhaust stroke)
the plugs tend to look slightly hotter than ideal.

DavidR is the resident Carb Guru, so you're best waiting for him to reply with specific carb recommendations.

Cheers,
Arnie

[andyb]

The only way you're going to have the valves give you wet, black plugs is if they're so ungodly tight that you have no compression and aren't able to light things off.  You can pop the cover and check them, but your problem is a carb problem most likely.

[SlowOldGuy]

I really hate to say this, but if you didn't get the floats off then that means you didn't replace the needle seat o-rings, which like to leak when they get old.  Also you may have flushed trash onto the needle itself potentially causing other leak sources. 

Did you try the "carbs upside-down while blowing into the fuel inlet hose test?"  That would tell you if you have any seeping needle seat o-rings or a stuck float.

Take a deep breath, and take your time.

DavidR.

[Alf]

Hola
Try starting the bike connecting an auxiliary fuel tank(i.e. a big srynge connected to the fuel line without the plunger) and the vacumm hose blocked. If the bike start to leak fuel thought the carb vent hoses you have a problem with the float bowls or the float bowls valves

Clean everything carefully. Little particles of dirt inside 2 float valves near got me crazy last month with my CBX 750: the symptoms were similar: 2 plugs wet and black (I thought the problem was a faulty coil) and the bike stalling. With the vacuum fuel pump (only open when engine started) I didn´t detect the problem until I connected the auxiliary tank... after buying 1 coil and dismount everything 3 times, and the CBX airbox is a nightmare to refit 

[Blurrman]

I really hate to say this, but if you didn't get the floats off then that means you didn't replace the needle seat o-rings, which like to leak when they get old.  Also you may have flushed trash onto the needle itself potentially causing other leak sources.  

Did you try the "carbs upside-down while blowing into the fuel inlet hose test?"  That would tell you if you have any seeping needle seat o-rings or a stuck float.

Take a deep breath, and take your time.

DavidR.

What is the "carbs upside-down while blowing into the fuel inlet hose test?"  You just mean bow in and check to see that they are fully closing and blocking?  If the needle was sticking then in the past, bikes that have that happen usually start leaking out the vent tubes,,,,i"m having no leak.