23-11-14, 10:43 AM
Well this has been a bit of a saga in the end. Tried balancing the carbs with a tube type a balance, basically 4 silicon tubes, all t pieced together with oil in them. But it was pretty out of balance and sucked all the oil out through one of the tubes.. Fail!
Then I tried some vacuum gauges but they weren't accurate enough so I tried a bottle type one, basically tubes going to glass jars full of water, the setup doesn't allow the engine to suck the working fluid in, so bonus. It was quite hard to balance, very touchy, and the fact the bike is a daily means I've been using it out of balance too. So I didn't get far with that, decide to replace the plugs again in case one was fouled (it was) put some stuff in the tank to strip water out of the fuel (just in case, it seemed to make a difference actually so perhaps there was some in there.) checked the water drain from the fuel cap, rebalanced it.. Twice and yeah, now see how it goes. Seemed ok on a ten minute test ride today but we'll see after riding it to work for a week.
Then I tried some vacuum gauges but they weren't accurate enough so I tried a bottle type one, basically tubes going to glass jars full of water, the setup doesn't allow the engine to suck the working fluid in, so bonus. It was quite hard to balance, very touchy, and the fact the bike is a daily means I've been using it out of balance too. So I didn't get far with that, decide to replace the plugs again in case one was fouled (it was) put some stuff in the tank to strip water out of the fuel (just in case, it seemed to make a difference actually so perhaps there was some in there.) checked the water drain from the fuel cap, rebalanced it.. Twice and yeah, now see how it goes. Seemed ok on a ten minute test ride today but we'll see after riding it to work for a week.