Below is the reply by Kropatchek:

Quote:

Mea culpa, mea culpa -- Oops.    I thought when i saw that post not to post in THAT post.  I jsut read it and came here.  Oops.  

And sorry for being unclear -- was tired, grumpy, and frustrated last night with the #$#$@^# bike.  

Yes, the bike is a 1996 Savage, recently purchased for my better half.  She (the bike, not my wife) has about 11k miles on her, and is in fairly good shape.  With new tires and my local wrench-head to try to fix the blasted oil leak in teh engine (apparently the infamous cap leak), she's basically 100%...  or was until I started mucking with her.

1 -- I put on an ebay-purchased Sportster Screamin' Eagle pipe, which sounds AWSOME.  Further -- and this is a completely subjective seat-of-pants statement -- I'm fairly sure the bike ran with significantly more torque BEFORE the rejet, albeit very (very) lean.  

I will say, though, that I could not get the mounting bracket bent in such a way that I could put a bolt through it, so I'm just using the muffler clamp itself.  The pipe is light and short enough that I have no worries about it coming off (and I torqued that muffler clamp on there well enough that it won't be a problem).

2 -- So I pulled the carb yesterday to deal with the fuel-air mix.  I must say, I've grown spoiled working on my Triumph -- the Savage is WAAY more tight internally than the Triumph!  Is the carb supposed to be so difficult to get out?  Even the tank is a pain!  

Anyway, between having problems with the fuel-air screw (drill clipped it while pulling the plug, so we had to mess with it to get it turned out) and wrestling with the carb to get it back in (see above complaints about space) we were staring to run out of daylight, and were in a hurry to get the tank back on (insert complaints about Japanese engineering tolerances here), and forgot to plug in the speedo cluster (I called it a nacelle, I suppose that's technically not right).  

The other change we made -- and this was completely on the fly and may have been stupid -- was to cap the vacuum ports on either side of the carb.  On other motorcycles on which we've worked, those are supposed to be, well, capped.  Are they really supposed to have hoses?

We tried to get the bike to start -- the starter works, the engine turns but does not catch. We thought perhaps that we should've left the vacuum ports open, so we pulled the caps off, but it still would not catch (and so we put the caps back on).  The speedo cluster is still disconnected (we ran out of time), and we ran the battery down itrying to get her to start.  

Here is a list of all the mods that were made, as well as the inadvertant change:

Sportster SE Muffler
Main jet changed to 152.5
F/A screw to approx 2.5 turns
Vacuum ports closed (removed hoses and put on caps)
(accidentally) disconnected Speedo cluster

Would any of these mods keep the bike from catching?  The carb appears to be getting fuel, the breather hose is connected to the tank, the airbox is connected...  Dunno.  Suggestions?

Oh, and I'll update my profile when i figure out how!

Thanks, folks!  

--Jaeger

what "vacuum ports" are talking about ???

I think he pluged the bowl vents ........... ???

Savage_Rob wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:03:


Yep, I'm quite sure that's what I did.  Ok, good to know...  bowl vents, eh?  I suppose, then, that by plugging those I would, say, render the thing incapable of starting?  

Aaah, live and learn.  

--Jaeger

Salad_Shaker wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:03:


Well, the instrument cluster on the modern Triumph Americas/Speedmasters are commonly referred to as a nacelle -- which, given the proper definition of the word (A separate streamlined enclosure on an aircraft for sheltering the crew or cargo or housing an engine) still isnt' right, but hey, it is an aerodynamic housing...  *shrug*

--Jaeger

Dynobob wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:03:


Spacer -- I did not pull the needle, though I wanted to.  Ran out of time.  How are you guys cutting the spacer?  Razor?  It looks like Ishould be able to pull that without pulling out the whole carb...  right?  (oh, please say yes -- i don't want to go through pulling that bloody thing out again, it was a real pain in the butt.)

As for the carb vents -- I just feel like a goof now. My buddy and I were sitting there saying "WTF?  Shouldn't these be plugged?!!?"   Er...     Me stoopid.  

--Jaeger