apparently this isn't something that can be fixed by messing around and asking questions here. I have 2 choices, chop it into tiny pieces and throw it over a cliff for my frustration (sounds like a good idea atm) or take it to a bike shop, bend over and pay out the ... just to find out the problem was something stupid.

I'm gonna take it to a local shop tomorrow morning. If he says he can't fix it, it's going over a cliff. If he can, I'll report back with the problem and perhaps that can help others save the frustration. Nothing in the table of contents helped me. I've spent the last week reading this website everyday. It's a load of awesome information but unfortunately none of it was my problem. Leave it to me to get the oddball bike that doesn't act like most do. I'm still baffled by the no backfire thing...I'm curious if it's going to backfire alot when I get it back.

Thank you all for your input and help. It's clear that I'm the 3rd person to encounter this problem. The guy I bought the bike from said he bought it from his friend as a "fixer". He said it needed a new fuel line or carb cleaned. His friend couldn't figure this problem out and apparently neither could the guy I got it from. Lets hope this dude at the shop figures it out. Thanks again.

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 06/19/11 at 16:16:03:


Not sure exactly what he did. I'll have to ask him. I know he said he sucked real hard on the line and no gas came out but it did have a tiny bit inside the hose.

Ok so, get ready to laugh. The bike is fixed for the most part.

We tested the petcock as described and it turned out fine. BUT, my brother took it for a ride with the vacuum line off of the carb and it didn't bog...so then we're thinking ok...more air made the bike right. So we put it back together, plugged off the vacuum stuff and took for a ride again...it bogged. So then we took the air filter completely out of the bike and ran it again, no bogging. So, then we hooked the lines back up, put petcock to ON and tried, no bogging, ran fine.

Upon close inspection the filter wasn't very dirty but someone put way too much oil on it. We removed the air filter completely and put the snorkle back on and the bike ran pretty good. Takes off good and takes the gas throughout the throttle range. I think we still need to do some tweaking as it wasn't perfect but we're close!

So then my brother reminded me of the Savage 650 bobber we saw on youtube that had straight header and a turn-out tip and how good it sounded. So we decided to take the muffler off (GASP). We got it off and my brother happened to have a slash cut beauty tip for a car and it slipped right on and covered up the uglyness.

Let me tell you...wow thats loud lol. It sounds totally different than the stock muffler obviously. Had a real nice thump on idle and sounds just obnoxious when you rev it.

So then we took it for a ride this way, no air filter, no muffler, and she seemed to have more power than ever before. The crackling when you let off the gas is just awesome. I really want to run it this way, I'll have to see if I get pulled over. Here in Boise every single Harley that rides by is straight pipes and obnoxiously loud so I doubt I'll have too much trouble. Can't say that about the neighbors though.

If it is too much, I grabbed a couple mufflers out of my triumph parts and this one I have almost fits. It looks like a miniature Dyna, even has a similar rail mount on it. The parts were all for my 1973 Bonneville 750 and some 650 parts as I got a frame and motor in a box too. Not sure if this exhaust came from the 750 or 650 parts, I have quite a few extra pipes and mufflers for the triumph laying around so I couldn't tell you offhand which it came from. But if its just too loud I know we can make this one work. If anyone is interested I can take a pic of it tomorrow and post it.

I'm going to buy a filter for it, get a nice cone one so she can breathe. It's funny because I had asked about the jetting chart and how it recommends to run a 155 with the high flow filter and better muffler. My bike has a 155 main jet stock, so I guess it's no wonder the more we take off, the better it runs.

What size filter should I get? Didn't see any 40mm on ebay but was plenty 42mm. Need to order some new footpegs too. The left one by the shifter is broken. Looks like these would bolt right on....

http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/detail.cfm?product_id=700&manufacturer_id=16    

anyone tried them? Thoughts?

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 06/20/11 at 04:47:25:


I don't recall anyone mentioning the air filter but yeah. Probably because it's kind of expected that someone would check it. Which we did check it more than once and it looked pretty clean. We even ran it without the filter but we were also doing alot of experimenting with the carb too so I don't know. In the end it was way too much oil on the filter, it's a wonder she started at all.

It's still not taking gas super great, it doesn't bog or anything but on a low rpm takeoff it takes a moment to catch up. Once I get everything on the bike like I want it I'll take it to that guy and have him hook it up to the EGA and tell me exactly what jets and mixture I need.

The carb is now back to completely stock as I was getting ready to take this to a shop and didn't want to cause confusion so I put it back together with the white spacer. I bet if I messed with the needle position now it would fix my slow takeoff!

Still no backfiring...this still bugs me as so many people complain about it and I feel like if the bike was setup right it would backfire but it doesn't. I'm not looking for cool backfire sounds as some kinda macho thing, I've just read so much about these bikes doing this naturally and it drives me nuts that mine doesn't. Makes me feel like something isn't right.

Thanks for not laughing Justin, its appreciated. And thanks to everyone who tried to help.