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Message started by engineer on 06/04/13 at 19:03:57

Title: 3 lessons learned
Post by engineer on 06/04/13 at 19:03:57

1) Well my big bang at shut down is finally gone. The final bit of advice that took care of that was the following from verslagen1:

"I've always found the biggest bang on shut down was when the idle mixture was set at optimum. And all it takes to get rid of it is an 1/8 to 1/4 turn richer."

I turned it out 1/8 which helped and then 1/4 over optimum and that fixed it. Thanks Versy!

2) Woke up to a foul odor in the house this morning and traced it to a large puddle of gas on the garage floor. I had forgotten to shut off the standard type petcock on my old Honda CB and the tank emptied through the carburetor. I took it apart and found the brass float filled with gas, it had a small crack in it and sunk to the bottom of the bowl. Soldered it up and resolved to never again leave the petcock in the ON position.

3) After reassembling the carb on the Honda and admiring my fine work I noticed that the rear axle nut looked funny. It was almost completely off the axle and the cotter pin was gone. The wheel was somewhat cockeyed and about to fall off. If the carb had not screwed up I would have taken it out for a ride. From now on, safety check before leaving the garage. Can't be lucky every time.

Title: Re: 3 lessons learned
Post by ToesNose on 06/04/13 at 19:17:58

Glad you caught that rear wheel Engineer, that could have been a disaster :o

Title: Re: 3 lessons learned
Post by Serowbot on 06/04/13 at 20:40:41

If only that CB had a vacuum petcock...
... then you wouldn't know that float had hole,... and you wouldn't have fixed it...
... and your rear wheel would still be free as a bird...

... are you sure you want to shut off your manual petcock?...
If you had.... wouldn't you be riding tomorrow with a sunk float, and gas spewing everywhere,... and how far from home?...
...(not to mention the loose axle)...
How many tools do you carry?...
That leak saved you from two, possibly deadly, roadside catastrophes...

Do you prefer a puddle in the driveway,... or a fuel splashed bike and pantlegs at 60mph sitting on a hot engine... and then,...no OFF position on your petcock... (do you trust that rubber vacuum diaphragm more than those brass floats?)...
'Tiss truly a choice a lesser evils...

I prefer the one I can turn off... and the one that will leak it's combustibles when I'm not sitting on it ...

JMHO... ...not really... it's more than just a humble opinion...
;D...

... (I might give exception for parking "indoors" as in an attached garage... and say best turn the manual pet, OFF...
... of course, the vac pet doesn't have that option... you must trust that the rubber diaphragm doesn't leak that day, because if it leaks, those floats don't matter anymore)...

Title: Re: 3 lessons learned
Post by engineer on 06/05/13 at 11:18:57

Serowbot you bring up some very good points and the leak did alert me to a much bigger problem. I decided that what I am going to do with the manual petcock is to leave it on after a ride until I am ready to close things up for the night and then I will shut it off.

It ticked me off because the gasoline leak dissolved the sealer on the garage floor and contaminated the oil in the crankcase. I had about 30 miles on a fresh change of Rotella and now I have to do it again because the dip stick smells more like gas than oil and the level is high. Must be gas.