Joy!

So my friend Viragoking came over today, hauling his 1985 Yamaha Virago xv700. We knew there would be some carb work to do, since gasoline would pour out one of the carbs after shutting it off. Also, when the bike was running, fuel was shooting out the exhaust (never a good sign) He had "hired" someone to clean his carbs for him, but shortly after he got it back, it started developing problems again.

Cosmetically, the bike is in pretty good shape, a few dings in the tank, the fork seals need to be replaced, oil change, air filter, the basics... He's got a new seat on order, and is expecting it soon

Prepare yourself...

We pulled the carbs off the bike. Let me just say that I thought the xj700 carb set up was confusing at first, though with repeated removals, the job got easier. The xv700 has hoses and tubes running every which way.. but that wasn't the big issue.

Let me just say that the greenish looking diaphragm you see to your right was actually the better looking of the two. Yes, there are only 2 carbs on this bike. Viragoking thought the parts were supposed to be green ("I thought they were pretty green plastic"), but with a bit of 1000 grit sandpaper, some wd40, they cleaned right up.

This was supposedly after the bike had been cleaned for $100 by a professional. Not very professional if you ask me. The guy obviously didn't pull the diaphragms, nor anything else except the owner's leg telling him things were done. The crud in the bottom of the fuel well was years old, and it looked as if someone had taken a screwdriver and tried scraping the gunk out.

Now, the odd thing was, this bike was firing on only one cylinder, but ran pretty well, to hear Viragoking tell it.

The pilot jet was clogged with debris. (Actually, there wasn't anything that wasn't) Luckily, he had ordered a carb rebuild kit for 32.00 (total for both) that included absolutely everything we needed.








What amazed me most was that the bike was still running, even after we discovered a few surprises left by a previous someone. We don't know who, but there was a small cap bolt (the kind that usually is decorative that fits over the end of a bolt) left inside one of the vacuum tubes. It was obviously placed with malice because it took some doing to pry the little sucker out. If this was an attempt to toss the proverbial monkeywrench into the machinery by the same aforementioned loser who did such a great job cleaning the carbs the first time, I hope karma punches him in the nads.

Finally, this...

Friends, if this isn't a reason to always do the work yourself, I don't know what is. It's obvious by the condition of the emulsion tube that it has never seen the light of day outside the factory. That's a whole lot of crap on that tube. The emulsion tube had to be forced out of it's seating with a screwdriver.

The carbs were carb-dipped and lovingly attended to by Viragoking, using a toothbrush and sandpaper and carb cleaner to get every last bit of gunk. The looked spotless on the inside when he was done.

Rudely, I started working on the carb hat, showing a bit of shinyness with some sandpaper and WD40 and sweat to expose the aluminum underneath. I say rudely because I started the job... Now it's up to Viragoking to finish it. Knowing his attention to detail, I'm sure that won't be a problem.

While the carbs were taking a bath, we took a closer look at his spark plug boots. One of them was completely useless, no resistance noted with the multimeter (oddly, the same one that wasn't firing) so I pulled an extra boot out of my collection and hooked it up. The other cap and the new one read between 5.69-5.80. Primary coils and secondary coil checks were within spec (although I'll have to check with my online buddies... the readings seemed awfully high 26.9)

We finally got everything put back together (man, that was a lot of work to do in a small space!). The carbs were reattached to the bike, the boots held in place with new clamps, his intake boots... well, that's going to take a bit more work. Pouring over the schematics, I can't find the gaskets that should be between the manifold intake boots and the manifold. Perhaps there isn't one? From the looks of the boot, however, there was something there at one time that appeared to be a gasket, but I can't find it. Pilot screws were set to 2.5 turns out.

Viragoking had forgotten his key at home, so had to run and get it. While he was gone, I gapped his new plugs and changed them out, changed his gear shaft oil (it looked bad) and turned the bike around to ready it for it's first ride.

Not ten minutes later Viragoking was back with key in hand. Setting the petcock on prime, we waited a few moments before slipping the key in...

It started! A little rough at first, but that worked itself out. I jumped on my xj700 and away we went. We took a short run down the street and at the first corner, I asked him how it felt. With a gleam in his eye, he said something, but due to the decibel level of his pipes, I could barely hear a word. He had this crazy look on his face...

We took off around the corner and he kept up pretty well until the next light. Then, like a jerk, I took off while he stayed behind.

Not sure what was happening, I turned around to see what had happened. He was still at the corner so I pulled up and we pulled onto the motorcycle runway (the sidewalk) to find his bike was acting dodgy. Poor throttle response and needed choke to keep running. He pushed it back to my house (I wasn't going to push it!) and of course once we got there, it started up again. The next time we went out, his bike took off like a rocket. (kinda sounded like one too).

The bike has some tuning issues to figure out, and front fork seals to replace, possibly a new starter, but it's running really well, considering what it had just been through. Viragoking is a pretty cool guy whom I look forward to riding with in the future.