Sunday wrenching on the 500!!! Questions.

Discussion in 'Mechanics Garage' started by Porkchop, Feb 26, 2012.

  1. Porkchop

    Porkchop New Member

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    So my mom's bf picked up my bike for me last week. He decided it was time to truely figure out what was wrong with the thing. So we started out this morning tearing it apart.

    [​IMG]

    - Checked the plugs, NGK iridiums. No oil on them. A little bit of carbon, but I polished them right up.

    - Checked the spark. There is spark to all 4 plugs. It didn't seem like the spark was very big, but the battery was weak.

    - Checked the compression. Cylinders 2 and 4 checked in at 75psi. Cylinder 1 registered at 72psi and Cylinder 3 registered at 68psi. Not sure if that is a problem, but he didn't think it was too bad.

    [​IMG]

    - Emptied the tank of all old gas and put fresh stuff.

    - Threw some ether in her and this happened.... (Clicky for videos below....)

    [video]http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/BRbaseball52/?action=view&current=2012-02-26_13-48-09_295.mp4[/video]

    No valve noises, just nice purr from the engine. We dont think there are any valve problems anymore. And it is questionable that there ever really was a ring problem, even though 3 was down a couple psi, the dealer made it seem like there was no compression. But we're back to the same place we were. The engine dies out when she returns to idle for too long. Now we're going back to carb problems. The guy said he cleaned the carbs, and they seem to be functioning properly, but she just doesn't want to roll over too easy. The other thing you will notice in this next video is a tad bit of smoke from the exhaust. It isn't oil smoke, but it seems like smoke from when a gasket is leaking. Brian seems to think that it isn't a blown head gasket, just isn't seated right from sitting for so long.

    [video]http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/BRbaseball52/?action=view&current=2012-02-26_13-51-14_944.mp4[/video]

    [​IMG]

    I need to replace this old fuel filter becasue it is dripping from the fitting. Any idea what I should go to???

    [​IMG]

    Thanks!!!
     
  2. Porkchop

    Porkchop New Member

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    Another quick question that arose tonight.....

    When the engine finally starts and is running on a fresh battery, and it doesnt seem to give the battery much juice to roll over again, might there be an electrical problem??? Could there be an alternator problem?

    Brian also wants to know what this is and are there any known problems with it??? The Clymer manual wasn't much help... :tongue:

    [​IMG]
     
  3. invisible cities

    invisible cities New Member

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    Glad to see you are giving this another go. IIRC, this engine only has 3,700 miles on the clock. The valve train should be mint.

    Pull the carbs and inspect all the circuits. While there remove the cam covers and check the valve lash.

    I don't remember, do you have a copy of the FSM? Also, for the carbs, check out Mike Nixon's guide to rebuilding. It is another must have for the library shelf.

    Good luck!
     
  4. Porkchop

    Porkchop New Member

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    Yes, the key here is time. I've had more time on my hands recently. I am taking my last class to graduate, so I'm not weighed down by a full course load. At the same time my hours got cut at work by a 1/3. So I was sitting there one night looking at the bike, and I couldn't bring myself to part her out.

    I had a job interview at Nationwide insurance today, so if I get that position, it will increase funds considerably. My plan is to atleast get her running well. At the same time I want to pick up a Ninja500 track bike to go racing this summer. And then eventually buy either a gen 3 or gen 4 VFR, or a Monster 696 down the line. (yea, i know the duc is blasphemy....)

    You are correct, bike has about 3,700 miles. I do not have the FSM. Just the crappy Clymers manual. I may look into one soon. Do you think from the videos that it is carbs that are letting it die out at idle???
     
  5. invisible cities

    invisible cities New Member

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    For reference:

    [​IMG]
     
  6. Metallican525

    Metallican525 New Member

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    Just happen to have TWO 84-86 VF500F FSM's laying here, need one cause the ol lady just got her own VF500F :party2: Got a little overly happy on Ebay and snagged one up, only to get a call two days later from the previous owner saying he just found the FSM for the bike he forgot about........:mad: What you wanna pay for one, I'll ship it to ya!!
     
  7. Metallican525

    Metallican525 New Member

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    Come to think of it, if you have an extra set of stock mirrors in good shape I'd be willing to trade for them...........:biggrin:
     
  8. Porkchop

    Porkchop New Member

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    Oh, you are a hero! Unfortunately I only have one set of mirrors laying around...

    I'll pm you after work about the fsm though.
     
  9. Metallican525

    Metallican525 New Member

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    A hero I ain't, an impatient dumbass with two manuals I may be however :biggrin:
     
  10. Porkchop

    Porkchop New Member

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    Friday 3/2 Update....

    - Brian pulled the carbs during the week when I couldn't assist. He opened up the two outside float bowls to check for movement and cleanliness. The inner two were hard becasue he couldnt get the covers off. (Quite a trick to get them off... but we did tonight) He also fixed the choke problem. The #1 cylinder choke arms was frozen in place and was not letting the rest pull open. A little PB Blast and they glide just fine.

    -Tonight we put them back on and reatached all of the cables. We had quite a hard time getting the float bowls to fill up. At first the bike would fire with ether, but would die when the ether was burned up. At first we thought it wasn't running on gas, but then we opened up a dump screw and no gas came out. Well, a little fidgeting with them and finally gas got to the bowls. Remember that I am on gravity feed. We turned the bike over once or twice and then this happened..... :bounce:

    [video]http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/BRbaseball52/?action=view&current=2012-03-02_22-56-03_597.mp4[/video]

    -What we did notice though was that with the choke fully on, the rpm's never rose as the bike warmed up. It just sat at a constant 3500rpm. When Brian rolled over the throttle we could see gas misting out of 2, 4, and 1. But no mist out of cylinder 3. So we opened up the dump screw and no gas. Which meant no gas in that bowl. Which meant the engine was only running on 3 cylinders. So we pulled the carbs AGAIN and wrangled that bowl cover off of 3. It looked damp, which only confused things, but we cleaned it out again and made sure the float was working correctly. By then it was midnight, so we decided to call it a night. Didn't want to anger any neighbors.

    [​IMG]

    But the major triumph of today is that the bike is self sustaining again!!! :banana: It ran with choke for a good 5 minutes before we turned her off. Another triumph is that there was 0 smoke from the exhaust (as noted by me pointing to brian in the video), which means no gasket problem. :party2:

    Goodnight all....
     
  11. invisible cities

    invisible cities New Member

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    Great news!

    Glad to see you are making good progress. If I could ask, have you had a chance to inspect the valve train and to set the valve lash?
     
  12. Porkchop

    Porkchop New Member

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    No we have not inspected valve lash yet. He wanted to focus on getting the carbs in clean operating fashion first. We will hit it down the line when the time comes...

    Quick question though... I know dirty carbs and temperature definitely affect the bike idling properly. But how much does the idle screw play into the equation? Could the idle screw be so far bumped that the bike isnt right? Is there a correct position or is it trial and error with the idle level? We didnt mess with it last night since it was only running on 3 carbs anyway, but if we know that all four are working and warmed up, we may have to adjust a bit...
     
  13. creaky

    creaky New Member

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    Good work Porkchop!! Glad you didn't give up on it. :biggrin1:
     
  14. squirrelman

    squirrelman Member

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    You need to do another compression test the proper way : Engine warmed up, all plugs out, fresh battery charge, throttle held wide open. Anything less than about 150 PSI or any cylinder much lower than the rest indicates trouble, but with such low miles not much should be wrong.

    If choke is still needed after 2 minutes of idleing, the pilot jets are not clean or idle mixture screws need tweaking. Idling with choke applied on a warmed-up engine will naturally cause the engine to die as excess fuel fouls the plugs if carbs are clean.
     
  15. Porkchop

    Porkchop New Member

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    Been unable to wrench myself due to my graduating capstone project. But he has tinkered with it some more. He pulled the carbs apart again and cleaned the seats and other stuff real good. He had it running well enough without any choke on that it got warm enough for the fans to kick on. He still wants to work on the idle screw and the throttle play a bit...

    Ran over today to borrow his battery jump for my friend's 636 and wanted to see it run. I barely had a half push on the starter and she fired up immediately. Before we had to crank and crank and crank to get it to even grab. He thinks we are so close to it being ready to put back together and ride.
     
  16. ZEN biker

    ZEN biker New Member

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    first though: that what is this pic, looks to be the coil pack for your spark, could be wrong but they look a lot like the one on my cm200t (bike i use to train other riders).

    that blueish smoke was unburnt fuel and oil resin in your exhaust tract, oil leaks by all valve stems, so if its been stored for a while (2 months or more) then expect some smoke as it burns off, this is normal and does not mean anything, only worry if its really thick and dark blue (way too much fuel or mixed oil/gas fuel) or if it burns white or dark black(burning oil, usuially due to head gasket, rings or cracks).

    :soapbox:Ether is not good for your engine! it has a lower ignition point and self ignites under compression, has 100x the power density of 100 octane gas and acts as a solevent to your cylinder walls. the extreme burning temperatures of ether can also cause hot spots hot enough to melt aluminum in your engine(only need 1200F to do that). if that doesnt phase you then think about your rings being slammed in to the lower ring seat of their groves hard enough to break the groves, the rings can shatter and worse gouge your cylinder.
    Always use fresh gasoline in small measured amounts down the carb to test and or prime an engine. Never ether! Ether was designed for first anestetic uses then on desiel engines(big ones like 567ci/cyl x 16cyl engines) to help get the cylinder temperatures high enough for auto ignition at -30F.

    squirrelman is right, redo a compression test the proper way and that will tell you lots about the upper deck and set the valve lash before you have a problem, if you can hear clicking its almost too late.

    hope you get her running right soon
     
  17. rainman6

    rainman6 New Member

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    This is great news Porkchop!!! I like that you have posted every step of your mission - Persistence wins once again!!!

    I think you better shout Brian a beer or two...
     
  18. Porkchop

    Porkchop New Member

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    Yes Rain, I owe him a couple drinks and the $$$ for the carb boots and fuel line he bought...
     
  19. Porkchop

    Porkchop New Member

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    Went over tonight after work and.......... I rode it for the first time since July 15th of last year!!!! :party2: Not gonna lie, it felt a little weird, but totally awesome! I'm so used to my clutch petal now and not a clutch lever.

    Threw the new battery in, installed the new fuel line, buttoned her back up, warmed her up nice and hot and went. The idle was still a bit too high, but that will just need some fine adjustment as the carbs break back in. Both me and Brian rode it around the neighorhood for a bit. And on my last ride back through the neighborhood, it died. :tsk: But thank god, it was only a small idiot hickup. We haven't finished running the new fuel line where it will end up and its just kind of sitting on the side. Well the excess slack fell down at the side and the carbs starved themselves. Doh.

    But we are getting very close, and it just plain felt good to get back on two wheels!
     
  20. Porkchop

    Porkchop New Member

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    Sunday 3/18 update:

    On today's agenda was to install the new fuel line and fuel filter in the position that I will end up, try to unbend the clutch lever from the fuckery that I did to it, and go for a ride in the georgeous weather we were having.

    Unfortunately the ride never happened, due to some complications followed by tornadoes that came rolling through the area. :mmph:

    We went to install the new fuel line and fuel filter, started her up at first hit, and realized gas was dripping from the bottom of the petcock were I did Jamie Daugherty's gravity feed mod last year. So we emptied the tank through the fuel filter, and undid the side cover to the petcock. The gasket must not have been in place, so we greased it up and put it back together. Put the tank back on, filled it up, and nothing.... no gas to the fuel filter. No matter what we did, no gas would flow to the the filter. Emptied the tank AGAIN and decided to pull the petcock from the tank. We got it all apart and tried cleaning it out real good. Were not quite sure if the petcock on the bike is the original vf500f petcock now. It just doesn't seem right compared to the FSM pictures. But we got it pretty clean and installed it back to the tank. Filled the tank up again, installed the fuel line and filter, and no flow again. So we hooked it up to the engine to see if a running engine would pull gas through the line, no go. Just by chance I told Brian to pull off the new filter.... and boom, gas came flowing out of the line!?!?!?

    At this point we were thouroughly confused. This is a brand new inline fuel filter that gas ran through it the very first time we hooked it up, and now gas will not even enter into the filter. I have no words to describe how stumped I am. Because we ran the fuel line straight into the engine and it ran perfectly fine. :hangme:

    And then we broke the clutch lever while trying to bend it back... :wacko:

    So just as we got to that point I realized the gorgeous sunny 70* weather had turned almost freakishly black. And then the tornado sirens went off.... :fear:

    F*ck this day....
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2012
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