86 Aspencade refresh

[Daeouse]

After some time whining, a wonderful lurking member (thanks, Allen!) approached me with the offer to buy his beautiful 1986 Aspencade.

It's in great condition overall, but Covid forced him to park it for nearly two years. As we all know, any time you park a carbureted bike without advanced preparation, the carbs gum up and other issues begin to crop up aggressively.

That being said, the refresh list so far is as follows:

• Rebuild carbs (check boots and other connections)
• New tires (the ones on it were made in 2000, per the date code)
• Brake flush and rebuild (no idea when it was last done, but you should do it every two years in Florida)
• Fork rebuild (not leaking yet, but why risk it?)
• Other stuff?

This will be the documentation of my slow rebuild.

The first issue:


When getting the bike to idle, I discovered that the carbs on the right side of the bike just puke gas everywhere, so a full rebuild is on the menu.

Oh, and the battery is a bit tired.

Here we go!

 

[julimike54]

Good luck....

 

[Daeouse]

Ok! I've found what I believe to be the leak!
Now, what's supposed to be connected here, or is it an overflow? It's between the two right-hand carburetors.

 

[Daeouse]

I asked around, and found it might be a sticking float causing the leak through the overflow pipe.
Looks like I need a full rebuild, unless I can get it unstuck. . .

 

[naturlm]

I asked around, and found it might be a sticking float causing the leak through the overflow pipe.
Looks like I need a full rebuild, unless I can get it unstuck. . .

If the rubber tips of float needles have been allowed to dry out during long term storage, they will cause a leak like this until they have swollen up a bit with fresh gas in carbs for 48 hrs or so.