"I add half an ounce of engine oil to my gas on every fill up. I think/hope it helps the inside of the gas tank especially with the darn ethanol. And lubricates the slide as well as the throttle shaft. My bike has only 9k on it but it runs very well, and I have never had a carb issue."

Norm , Adding oil to your gas isn't a great idea, if your adding it every time you fill up (and not running the tank bone dry each time) the concentration  of oil will build up with every fill (as will ANY other additive).  Oil entering the cylinder will likely burn, and leave carbon deposits on the sparkplug(foul it) and combustion chamber walls and piston dome that could cause detonation . Not to mention soot in your exhaust system. While the plug could be cleaned and reused ,detonation is something to be avoided.
     I strongly doubt that the oil lubes your slide or throttle shaft, the fuel enters under the slide at the main jet(if a finger print will make your slide hang up, I'd hate to think what motor oil would do) ,and the pilot jet and choke enter down stream from the slide. The throttle shaft would not be lubed either as the amount of fuel being greater, would simply wash it into the cylinder.
   If the oil you added to the gas tank doesn't mix fully with the gas it will migrate to the bottom ,and could cause some problems if you need to use your reserve petcock setting.
   In all I would discontinue it's use. You'd be better off just running pure gas.
   

Gary_in_NJ wrote on 03/22/19 at 19:20:43:


I don't but my experience is mainly on 2 stroke bikes where you could have good compression but an air leak would lean out your motor and kill it. I know the same is not likely true for a 4 stroke but I'm not sure if frequent leak tests are something people do on these motors if they have good compression. The bike is new to me and I don't know its history so I want to be sure if will run great for years to come.

Thanks, I'll skip it for now. I did notice a lot of rust in the tank and petcock so I think you guys may have been right about me being lean and that might be where it's coming from.

I have been looking at: http://gastanklining.com/ to do my tank. Price is kind of steep at $350 but I have a gut feeling this is going to be one of those thing I'll be swearing about for hours if I try to do it myself. Anyone used GTL before? Or do you have any recommendations on where I can get my tank lined?

That's a great procedure Dave.  I've used the evaporust in the past and think you came up with a great application for the product.  It's great that you put so much effort into the written procedure.  Lots of hard work on your part that we can all benefit from.  Thanks for sharing.

Don't toss that bolt just yet , it belongs in the head ,just forward of the decomp  , and holds down the sealing surface in that corner of the head cover. So you'll want to replace it , you can run the bolt downward and and capture a nut placed between the opening in the  front of the fins.                    
         It's not stock, It's a replacement  for the much longer stock bolt (which was only threaded where it pasted above the chrome cover)and placed with the head down in a notch in the fins, and ran up to hold the head cover and  up through the chrome "beauty "  cover where the nut was tightened to hold both in place.

The Pilot jet doesn’t effect power, just off-throttle response. 90% of the time we are riding on the needle. Raising the needle is probably all you need to do at this point.

Look at that cam chain adjuster, looks like 9k miles to me.
Are you gonna replace it with the verslavy version while you’re in there?

Thanks, I know not to use auto engine oil due to the friction modifiers but what I'm wondering if if the PO did, what will the clutch look like? The clutch thickness is spot on and the clutch looks brand new.

I only rode the bike once but it rode like hell. I tore it down to investigate and do the verslagen cam chain tensioner mod. What I've found so far is the wrong plug was in the bike, the oil looked black as night, and the carb was jetted incorrectly.

When I say the bike rode like hell it had no power past 1/4 throttle. I don't think it's a clutch issue but can't be certain so I was thinking I'll just change the clutch while I have the side cover off but was wondering if there's anyway to tell if the PO used an oil with friction modifiers.

Also, Clymers Page 153 is very confusing. I have one friction disc that's thicker than the rest that's up against the clutch hub. Is this normal? Clymers reads like it should be the opposite.