[rjohnson1969]

your fast idle question

Q1) Say, did you ever fix that fast idle problem? I have the same symptom, the bike idles really high (~3000) when it is hot.

BTW, good point about the air filter. I never thought of it being inside out. May I say, mine looks brand new from the carb side, and I never looked at the intake side!

Also, here's my trick for the spark plug removals(front left and rear right): My 18mm Cobalt deep dish had no retention provision at all, and I was totally paranoid about dropping it in the hole.
* loosen them, but don't remove
* poke the fuel line in there and cram it down onto the plug
* turn it out the rest of the way with the fuel line, remove carefully
* I threaded the new ones back in with the fuel line
* tightened with the wrench.

 

[mde8965]

Re: your fast idle question

Q1) Say, did you ever fix that fast idle problem? I have the same symptom, the bike idles really high (~3000) when it is hot.

BTW, good point about the air filter. I never thought of it being inside out. May I say, mine looks brand new from the carb side, and I never looked at the intake side!

Also, here's my trick for the spark plug removals(front left and rear right): My 18mm Cobalt deep dish had no retention provision at all, and I was totally paranoid about dropping it in the hole.
* loosen them, but don't remove
* poke the fuel line in there and cram it down onto the plug
* turn it out the rest of the way with the fuel line, remove carefully
* I threaded the new ones back in with the fuel line
* tightened with the wrench.

Yeah it is fixed. It was a combonation of the carb slides sticking and other gunk in the carb. The carbs are rebuilt, spark plugs changed, tank cleaned out, every fluid is replaced and it runs like a champ. After the rebuild, I had a problem where the bike would run too lean about 55mph or so. But at slow sppeds it was so smooth and quiet. I ended up messing with the air/fuel deal under the cap on the carb. Now it does not run lean at higher speeds, but it runs a little bit rich at slower speeds (not quite as smooth or quiet at idle as before I messed with it. I would say it runs as good as an 86 VT500 is ever going to run.

 

[rjohnson1969]

fuel filter question

OK, good info -- I'm not inclined to disassemble the carbs at present, mine runs well enough.

BUT, let me ask you this:
What type of fuel filter did you end up with? The space between the "T" and the nipple on the shutoff valve is pretty tight, eh?

I'm having an awful time with this. The original fuel line to the left carb recently broke, and I managed to wrestle a replacement piece in there, but my first attempt at reassembly left the tank-to-filter line so cramped that it almost pinched off the fuel flow.

I went with a paper filter since I decided these catch tiny bits of rust better. The body of the filter is around 1.5 inches long, and each line (from right carb to "T", from "T" to filter, from filter to shutoff valve is as short as possible, but it didn't work, so I got another ~7" piece and curled it in a 3/4 turn loop to connect the shutoff valve to the fuel filter. This description is probably mangled -- I should post a photo of the problem area.

Well, you were in there recently, what worked for you?

 

[mde8965]

No filter. Just the screen that is on the petcock. The fuel line is hard enough to wrestle on there without having to deal with a filter. I have a Can of Seafoam that I will run through the gas avery couple of months to keep it is clean as possible.

 

[killer01ws6]

Not sure on the bikes(have not had such an issue on one)
But you are describing a vacuum leak on a car to the Tee.