Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Tue, 11 May 2010

Whew!

I tried taking the street CL175 for its inaugural break-in ride yesterday (seems like I've done a lot of those rides in the last few months), but was thwarted out of the gate. It would idle, but that's about it. Any more gas than that, and it would have enough power to spin up the motor with no load, but nothing more. When I put it in gear and tried to head out, it just bogged and nearly died until I turned around and gave up for the day.

I spent some time pondering the problem. It was doing this odd coughing/backfiring routine whenever I cracked the throttle, and I started entertaining gloomy thoughts of having messed up the cam timing -- something that wouldn't be disasterous, but would mean I'd have to pull the engine out of the bike yet again. I also considered crud in the carbs, water in the gas, and dead sparkplugs.

The obvious first step (that's a lot less obvious when faced with these problems, for some reason) is to replace the sparkplugs. Once fouled, it's effectively impossible to get a plug back to a functional state, and these sparkplugs had been through a fair number of first-runs without being replaced.

So this morning, I replaced both plugs, carefully retaining the ridiculous double-washer I have to run with my too-large sparkplugs (it's a long story involving miscommunication and Helicoils). Although it hesitated at bit at first, after a few minutes of idling and warming up, the engine came to life, and I was able to ride off for a fairly satisfying first ride.

It's so nice when the first and simplest attempt at problem resolution completely solves the problem. There are still a few tiny issues to deal with (timing could probably be adjusted; jetting could probably be adjusted; an indicator light needs to be replace), but it's looking likely that the street CL is finally healthy and back on the street.

Posted at 10:13 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.