[Dakotah]

Hey folks!

So my 85 honda shadow has been coming along nicely for the most part. The other day I was forced to pull off the carbs for a cleaning and rebuild. Finally got it all reinstalled last night and she is running much better now.

The problem.

One of the cylinders was kind of hit or miss on when it operated. An acquaintance at autozone that worked on hondas for years suggested toying around with the air/fuel mixture on the bike, as well as checking spark plugs.

Now, since I seem to be on a wild goose chase finding a spark plug socket skinny enough to get into my bike, I first toyed with the air/fuel mixtures. This significantly helped in how the bike was running, but now I seem to be running really hot (boiling coolant?) and my coolant overflow hose blows out steam. The fan engaged once or twice but that's bout it.

I'm kind of at a loss, as I'm not exactly the mechanically gifted.

So all that stated. I'm curious of ya'lls thoughts on how to troubleshoot the issue. As well as what the actual settings for the air/fuel mixures are. As it sits now, I believe I'm sitting at around 2.5-3 turns out.

Thanks for your help. I hope I gave enough detail on the matter. I'd be more descriptive if I could!

 

[swifty2014]

I got an 18MM deep 6 point socket from Home Depot and it works fine. I put a piece of fuel hose inside and glued it in to keep from dropping the plug on the ground.
About $4.00 - 5.00.

Did you have an overheating problem for a while or just suddenly?

I would check our coolant level at the radiator cap, when it is cool, fill it, and run the bike with the cap off to see if it pushes out very much. It may push out some as it heats and expands. Too much and that's no good.
Then when it is warm, shut it off and see if you can feel the radiator core on the fins, see if it is evenly warm across the core and cooler as you get near the bottom.
Maybe the radiator is clogging.

 

[Dakotah]

I'll go out right now and flush the radiator. I used some radiator stop leak stuff in it recently and it makes sense that it could be plugged. Didn't think I used that much, but its worth a look. I'll flush the radiator and update post accordingly. Thanks for the tip Swifty!

 

[swifty2014]

Hope it works out well for you. The drain for the coolant (at least on my 83 750 ) is on the water pump and a very small bolt you remove. So when I changed the coolant I just removed the lower hose at the pump to drain it quicker and get more old coolant out.

 

[Dakotah]

Turns out it was very low on coolant. But she's still running hot enough to boil the coolant, and I've seen the fan kicking on and off as I would think it should.

Just took it around town and notice it doesn't want to come off the throttle. When I let off, it takes a long time to wind down, which makes me nervous as heck.

Very aggravating issues for a novice's only mode of transportation. If I hadn't just lost my job, I'd send it to the shop.

 

[jpr1968]

First thing to do with a stubborn throttle is lube the cables.

 

[jack6251]

I'm in a similar position to you regarding transport so feel your pain!

Just want to say that if you're doing short trips in an inner town/city setting with stop starts that're pretty regular, your bike will tend to get red hot real fast as it'll be doing a lot of shifting and little air flow to add to the cooling of the engine. Is this kinda your test route? It's just it'll be relying on a good working coolant liquid system plus fan even more if that's the case. I'm just wondering how the temperature is over a sustained cruise speed of say 50 - 60 mph for a good 10 minutes and how the fan reacts in comparison to a lower speed set of tests.

I'm kinda new too to bikes but I've seen some of the guys in similar threads recommend using a water hose to blast into your coolant pipes to try and dislodge and clean out, if you're only going to do that a couple of times I don't see that'd hurt anything if you start the hose gently too. It just sounds to me as though the water within the system isn't moving and is staying still, not allowing heat to disipate and become air cooled too. It sounds as though it's kinda trapped right on a point that really is red hot, the liquid just cannot be moving much if at all.

I dunno about coolant systems much to be honest but I do know that trapped steam building up is essentially a bomb, so I'd want to be sure that steam could definitley escape if things got that hot or you may rupture or contribute to hairline cracks maybe in the pipes so if it's coming out somewhere, that has to be a good sign.

How about, putting it on the main stand after a good flush, top up the system with coolant and make sure the reserve is looking good too. Put a container under the outlet pipe to catch any coolant and re-use it again and just keep the bike at a particular RPM to deliberately get it hot. Bring air conditioning fans around the bike to mimic and recreate air flow how it'd be if riding around if you need if things get realllly hot. I'm just thinking this way you could buy a nice amount of coolant and have a chance to catch it, observe things and re-use the same coolant rather than it being all over the road somewhere.

Hope it all works out!

 

[jack6251]

Turns out it was very low on coolant. But she's still running hot enough to boil the coolant, and I've seen the fan kicking on and off as I would think it should.

Just took it around town and notice it doesn't want to come off the throttle. When I let off, it takes a long time to wind down, which makes me nervous as heck.

Very aggravating issues for a novice's only mode of transportation. If I hadn't just lost my job, I'd send it to the shop.

What does the bike idle at with RPM after say a 10 minute tick over of warming up or a nice ride and allowing it to idle? Screwing your A/F screws in should reduce the RPM if too high and also tweaking the throttle stop screw on the left side under the tank will also reduce the RPM, I'd do that one first if your bike is anything like 500 - 1000RPM over what the specs of it say to be at. I've had a similar thing myself and just blipping the throttle to a high RPM took some time for it to lower down again until I tweaked those things to get it +/- 100 RPM of what my factory specs stated after being nicely warmed up.

 

[Dakotah]

Regarding the throttle not backing off, its not a cable issue because the throttle itself releases just fine. But after the throttle snaps back its like a long drawn out return to idle. Giving the engine rev shows low response until RPMs are up. But from an idle its sluggish. Considerable pop n crackle when rolling back down to an idle. (to describe pop n crackle, think "down shifted to early", only just any time its winding down).

As for the coolant. I took it down a road at like 45mph for a couple miles, but by the time I got back to my place it was more stop and go. I live in a town of maybe 5k people, so there's like 3 main roads that run north and south with little to no stopping involved, which is usually the routes I go.

 

[jack6251]

Regarding the throttle not backing off, its not a cable issue because the throttle itself releases just fine. But after the throttle snaps back its like a long drawn out return to idle. Giving the engine rev shows low response until RPMs are up. But from an idle its sluggish. Considerable pop n crackle when rolling back down to an idle. (to describe pop n crackle, think "down shifted to early", only just any time its winding down).

As for the coolant. I took it down a road at like 45mph for a couple miles, but by the time I got back to my place it was more stop and go. I live in a town of maybe 5k people, so there's like 3 main roads that run north and south with little to no stopping involved, which is usually the routes I go.

The popping can usually be reduced or stopped altogether by playing around with the A/F screws, I think usually turned in works for reducing.

Waht're you idling at RPM'wise once warmed up, just info for the pot of analysis

 

[Harryc]

The popping can usually be reduced or stopped altogether by playing around with the A/F screws, I think usually turned in works for reducing.

Should be just the opposite Jack. Out to enrichen the AF mix and in to lean it out. Popping is a lean condition so you'd want to turn the AF screw/s out a quarter of a turn at a time untl it stops.

 

[jack6251]

Should be just the opposite Jack. Out to enrichen the AF mix and in to lean it out. Popping is a lean condition so you'd want to turn the AF screw/s out a quarter of a turn at a time untl it stops.

Mmm, well I took a 50/50 guess there from memory hehe. But luckily (kinda) I have popping too so can get my screwages in order

 

[Dakotah]

I wish I knew lol. I got the bike as a Craigslist deal for $700. Aparently the dude had wrecked it, so its missing its tac and the speedometer is bolted (barely) to a make shift mount. I'm forced to shift by ear. Would fix, but as stated earlier, I lost my job last week and I'm kind of SOL in terms of purchasing upgrades or replacements =(.

I've adjusted the idle screw so that it idles at a low RPM rate. I'd say about half of what it used to idle at when warm. I used to always think the choke was on after riding around a bit because it idled so high. Please correct me if this was a bad idea lol!

I'll play around with the A/F settings again here shortly. Had to take a break before I lost my temper haha

 

[jack6251]

Yeah I guess taking an RPM reading for the info pot would be tricky lol.

Just for an interest for yourself, there ma7y be a chart showing at what RPM gear changes are suggested to be made in some manual or other for the bike. I had one for my old 125cc and it kinda helped me understand RPM to gear change moments a little. You still wouldn't know what the heck's going on tho hehe, but it might be of interest to know what's what on a healthy bike.

Wish I had some spares, I'd send you a Tac. Maybe if you're lucky some good soul will read this and offer you something......

But hey if I get back in the black myself and find one at one of these auto jumble sales I got to, I'll gladly mail it to you. There's a big one just south of York here in England, kinda near me and it's about 4 football pitches big, massive and full of spares and parts for all kinds of things. I got my luggage box rack from there, a place called Ruforth, tiny little village not known for anything but the sale and an airfield. I was kinda on my home out, heading home after a really good look around for a rack and had resigned myself to not finding one, then suddenly I spotted the one in my sig and new immediately it'd fit, what luck on my way out lol

 

[swifty2014]

I have lowered my idle to experiment with where it works good but sounds cool. The factory says about 900-1000 rpm range but you can adjust it by ear to where it runs smooth. As Jack would say I was just "faffing about" or experimenting.

I think what I would do is have the engine off, and adjust both idle mixture screws gently in all the way and back them out to 3 turns. Then start up and adjust the idle down very low and bring it up a few 100 RPM to a smooth speed. Then adjust the mixture screws again in a little and see if it speeds up. Adjust back and forth 1/2 turns to find best speed and smoothness. Evenly on both carbs.
Then BY HAND move the throttle lever to see if that is actually binding at the carbs not allowing quick return to idle.

On the cooling problem you can drain and as I said before I took the lower hose loose at the pump to drain and with a garden hose pushed against the hose and then the pump fitting try to back flush the system. With the thermostat in it won't go easily through all the passages but it can help to clear out some of that stop leak.
Just refill it with water for now and ride it to see if it is still overheating.You can pull the thermostat out to inspect or even ( temporarily reassemble ) and run it again to see if that is the answer. Put coolant in after all is done.

 

[jack6251]

Yeh yer can't beat a good faff!

I just had an idea (which won't help here lol) but wouldn't it be cool if there was an app for a phone that could somehow tell you what RPM you're doing based on the pitch/note that the bike is putting out. Just a toy for big kids but I think I'd love one

 

[swifty2014]

Jack that is a cool idea about an app for RPM. I happened to look for something like that and found this on I Tunes for Apple products. =

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/engine-rpm/id340401811?mt=8

It seems to have good reviews but a bit hard to understand at first. Looks neat for guys who have no tach.
I have a Ipod touch and am tempted to try it out since it's only $9.00. I don't really need it since I have meters and tachs. but it is intriguing.

 

[Dakotah]

Thanks so much for your detailed suggestions! I'll hopefully gain access to a shop tomorrow and be able to test all ya'lls advice =).

Will update accordingly. May include a quick video clip if problems persist to give you an idea of what is going on.

 

[Dakotah]

Ok so I got it to the shop this morning. I havent yet been able to flush the water system, but I did play with the A/F adjustments.

I thought I had it all figured out, got rid of the pop and crackel, and she was running much much better. But then I realized I had forgot to take off the choke, and it set me back to zero. I played with it a bit but its still not quite right. She wants to stall a little when taking off. But the throttle issue has been pretty much resolved.

I'm just going to send it to the shop (assuming I can afford to with what I've got) and have them fix it. I'll also be ordering a repair manual to read up on.

I'll update again once I figure out how to remove the thermostat (or find it for that matter hah, and flush the system.

 

[Dakotah]

Pulled the thermostat out, seems to have solved my overheating problem. But i'm still stuck with the issue of wanting to stall (sounds like its missing on a cylinder). As stated above, I thought I had it all figured out until I realized the choke was still on. Cant find that sweet spot now.

I've been trying to balance it out by turning the A/F screws in all the way, then I've tried turning out 2-3 full turns each and going from there, but I just can't seem to find that good balance between the two.