This is a long story  but after talking with Lancer he suggested that I post it as it might help someone else on this site. My bike is a 2007 LS650 with 3800 miles on it. I came home from a 25 mile run and parked my bike in the carport. It had been running perfect. 4 days latter I rolled it out in the yard and started it up and it kept shutting down. I live down here in Florida and never have to use the choke when starting. I was puffing all kinds of black smoke, the kind you would get with full choke. I rolled it back to my work station and drained and removed the tank removed the seat,
Battery and box and pulled the carb. I tore the carb down and it was clean as a whistle inside. I checked both diaphragms and blew all the passages through carb cleaner and put it back together and put it back on the bike. I thought maybe I had got some bad gas to I went and bought a gallon of fresh gas and even bought a new spark plug. I had checked the old plug and it was snapping hot blue spark grounding on the head bolt.
When I restarted  it was doing the same thing as before only worse. I contacted Lancer and he told me there were only 2 things that would cause this condition, the petcock(which was the first thing I had checked for gas in the vacuum line) and dirt in the float needle. I told him I hated to pull the carb off the bike again so I was going to drop the float bowl in place. At this point let me say that I am really glad that I had already replaced all the junk screws in the carb with stainless allen head screws when I rejetted the first time. Now it really gets better! I dropped the float bowl and and not a bit of dirt on the bottom. What was laying on the bottom was my little brass pilot valve! It had come unthreaded and fell out. The reason it fell out was my fault. Let me say here that I’m not a rookie on bikes. This is my 9th bike and over the years I’ve rebuilt 4bbl Rochesters, Carters and Hollys on cars but this time I screwed up. When I bought my jet kit from Lancer I done all the work on my work bench. Well I had went up to high on the jet size and after contacting Lancer he told me to come down I size. I had already done the white spacer and added a Harley Dyna muffler. When I changed the jets this time I done it with the carb on the bike. Now here is where I screwed up. I used  a little skinny screw driver to remove the pilot jet. When I put it back in I used a little stubby screw driver and the blade was a little wider than the one I had used to remove it. Guess what, that wider blade bottomed out on the sides of the pilot jet bore and gave me a false feeling of being tight. I don’t know how many threads it caught on but the bike run perfect for a little over 500 miles. Thank God when it came completely out it was right in my yard  and not out in the boonies as I run around on a lot of back roads down here. I won’t even think about what this would have cost if I took it back to the stealership! I know this long but I hope someone  else can learn from my mistake. My many thanks to Lancer!

As the Amish say up in Lancaster co. Pa.  “To oldt soon and to late smart”

marine5317 wrote on 01/01/09 at 09:04:58:


They might also say: Tighten the screwdriver in the carb the right size for the pilot jet.

(derived from the old standards,  "throw papa down the stairs his hat" and "throw the cow over the fence some hay")

From just east of the Amish lands....    ;

Andy my fil wasnt amish but here are a couple andyisims:
the froze is hosen
if the foo shits wear it
were going thru eisen tunnel hower
when on ice tap your lights brakely

sluggo wrote on 01/04/09 at 11:15:06:

lancer is the man, well on the east side,  over here in the west,  we got both greg and max to help us out.  i even got max in the same town as me.  now thats priceless.

Oh Sluggo, you've pierced my heart dude  

I know I'm way over here on the east side of the block, but I thought we had a connection man; after all that time behind the dumpster; sharing the stu... eh ... ah ... well you know ... daily rations.  

Well, I suppose I understand.  I mean, with the geographical reality we just don't get the quality bonding time that you get with Max, being right there in the same town and all and Greg being in the area as well.  

Anyway, don't worry about me; I will be ok; no really, I will be fine; it may take a while but all is well; for sure; I'm workin on it...........  

thumperclone wrote on 01/05/09 at 08:22:06:


I know he is still breathing; got a one-liner from him a couple of weeks back and today he posted a new year thank you for the CD sales.   I thought you had contact with him for some reason.

sluggo wrote on 01/07/09 at 00:51:48:

sluggo wrote on 01/04/09 at 11:15:06:



Moses lake WA. Man The first savage I ever saw was on sprague in spokane It was in front of a tavern on Sprague and I think Flora next to an abandoned motel. Was it yours ? Anyway that was in summer of 1994 and it was a black beast with a beautiful sidecar. I was 2 more years and 1000 miles away that I first bought a savage - in Northern CA. Anyway sold that in 1998, move in 02 to charlotte NC and bought my second, third, fourth (same as the second) and fifth savages, sold #3 chopped #4 and am about to finish #5 and possibly sell it soon.
Cool.
Srinath.

srinath wrote on 01/07/09 at 11:26:37:

not mine, phelonious maybe.  
i rode through spokane last year. on one of my yearly mountain runs. i try to ride to some mountain every season.