BIGmackie
Well-known member
Since I posted what was essentially the beginning of my build thread in the new members forum I'll just continue it here.
Read the beginning of this story here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1612
So, I've been chasing gremlins on this since I got it to Washington.
First I'll start with the thing that I'm most proud of, but was the least of my problems, the gauge cluster.
Anyone familiar with the '83 Aspencade knows that it was the first model to kick-off the LED dashboard. Mine has never worked properly. Since the '83 Aspy was the only bike to use this particular cluster, it’s a pretty rare thing to find and they're expensive when they do show up. Analog gauges are much more common, so I opted to adapt one to fit my bike. To the best of my knowledge I'm the only one to ever do this. If anyone else here has, I salute you; it's the biggest nightmare on earth. I spent the better part of an entire weekend with a test light, ohm meter, and wiring diagram for the '83 aspencade (boy-oh-boy do I wish I had a color copy) and the '81 Interstate. After drawing out my own wiring diagram on a blank piece of newsprint in jumbo-size I was able to figure everything out. I even used the connectors from my old '83 LED dash to splice it all together, didn't even need solder. The best news is that everything works the way that it was designed to and I didn't blow anything up or catch myself on fire! Put one in the win box.
That was a cosmetic fix, and a welcome break from all the mechanical gremlins that I have been running around with. If you read my other post, I mentioned that I pulled the carbs after bringing her out of storage. All I did was clean out the passages and make sure that everything looked pretty good. When I bought the bike, the PO said he had the carbs rebuilt by a professional. It appears that the carbs had been rebuit as all the gaskets and rubber is brand new and looks great. I really didn't have any reason to distrust him. I should have known better...
All last week I was preparing to sync the carbs because I knew it needed to be done and I was interested in doing it. In preparation for it, I was fiddling around with the bike and kept getting a horribly loud backfire out the exhaust, my neighbors even called the cops on me. This got me doing some research and I came to the conclusion that I needed to pull the carbs off and check out the adjustments. So that's what I did this weekend.
Here's a look at the float bowl levels:
Before:
After:
The measurement at the highest point of the float was 26mm. Honda recommends 15.5mm for the '83 GL1100A. It was over 30mm at the lowest point! It looks like whoever rebuilt the carbs may have put new floats on without adjusting them at all.
The needle and jets looked great by the way. And all the yellowing isn’t vanish, it’s from my cell phone’s flash.
Next was the Pilot screw adjustment (no pics, sorry). The Honda recommendation is 3 turns out for 82 and 83's. Mine were turned all the way in! I’m thinking that the "professional" who rebuilt my carbs was not really a pro at all. It’s apparent that they have been re-done, but not at all properly.
After investigating all this (and readjusting the valves) I got her back together and she started up and started purring like a kitten; a kitten with a really fast idle, since it was idling at about 3000 with full choke on.
I got her warmed up, readjusted the idle and finally sync'd my carbs. I gotta say they're probably as close to perfectly synced as any carbs have been ever. It took me about three try's to finally get it where I like, but now I'm super happy. She'll idle at about 950, but likes it better at 1000 rpm; has a lot of primary chain noise in low RPM, but no more than what I have discovered is normal; and has a ton of power now, so much more than before I tweaked with the carbs. I did notice occasionally it would "cough" out the exhaust, nothing loud and only on deceleration. I'm assuming this is a product of running a bit rich, and maybe I need to further adjust my pilot screws?
Anyway, I'm revved up that I was able to finally get this thing to run well. It's NEVER started this easily or run this well. More to come...
Read the beginning of this story here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1612
So, I've been chasing gremlins on this since I got it to Washington.
First I'll start with the thing that I'm most proud of, but was the least of my problems, the gauge cluster.
Anyone familiar with the '83 Aspencade knows that it was the first model to kick-off the LED dashboard. Mine has never worked properly. Since the '83 Aspy was the only bike to use this particular cluster, it’s a pretty rare thing to find and they're expensive when they do show up. Analog gauges are much more common, so I opted to adapt one to fit my bike. To the best of my knowledge I'm the only one to ever do this. If anyone else here has, I salute you; it's the biggest nightmare on earth. I spent the better part of an entire weekend with a test light, ohm meter, and wiring diagram for the '83 aspencade (boy-oh-boy do I wish I had a color copy) and the '81 Interstate. After drawing out my own wiring diagram on a blank piece of newsprint in jumbo-size I was able to figure everything out. I even used the connectors from my old '83 LED dash to splice it all together, didn't even need solder. The best news is that everything works the way that it was designed to and I didn't blow anything up or catch myself on fire! Put one in the win box.
That was a cosmetic fix, and a welcome break from all the mechanical gremlins that I have been running around with. If you read my other post, I mentioned that I pulled the carbs after bringing her out of storage. All I did was clean out the passages and make sure that everything looked pretty good. When I bought the bike, the PO said he had the carbs rebuilt by a professional. It appears that the carbs had been rebuit as all the gaskets and rubber is brand new and looks great. I really didn't have any reason to distrust him. I should have known better...
All last week I was preparing to sync the carbs because I knew it needed to be done and I was interested in doing it. In preparation for it, I was fiddling around with the bike and kept getting a horribly loud backfire out the exhaust, my neighbors even called the cops on me. This got me doing some research and I came to the conclusion that I needed to pull the carbs off and check out the adjustments. So that's what I did this weekend.
Here's a look at the float bowl levels:
Before:
After:
The measurement at the highest point of the float was 26mm. Honda recommends 15.5mm for the '83 GL1100A. It was over 30mm at the lowest point! It looks like whoever rebuilt the carbs may have put new floats on without adjusting them at all.
The needle and jets looked great by the way. And all the yellowing isn’t vanish, it’s from my cell phone’s flash.
Next was the Pilot screw adjustment (no pics, sorry). The Honda recommendation is 3 turns out for 82 and 83's. Mine were turned all the way in! I’m thinking that the "professional" who rebuilt my carbs was not really a pro at all. It’s apparent that they have been re-done, but not at all properly.
After investigating all this (and readjusting the valves) I got her back together and she started up and started purring like a kitten; a kitten with a really fast idle, since it was idling at about 3000 with full choke on.
I got her warmed up, readjusted the idle and finally sync'd my carbs. I gotta say they're probably as close to perfectly synced as any carbs have been ever. It took me about three try's to finally get it where I like, but now I'm super happy. She'll idle at about 950, but likes it better at 1000 rpm; has a lot of primary chain noise in low RPM, but no more than what I have discovered is normal; and has a ton of power now, so much more than before I tweaked with the carbs. I did notice occasionally it would "cough" out the exhaust, nothing loud and only on deceleration. I'm assuming this is a product of running a bit rich, and maybe I need to further adjust my pilot screws?
Anyway, I'm revved up that I was able to finally get this thing to run well. It's NEVER started this easily or run this well. More to come...
I thought this forum was all about ME!
