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Cause & Correction
7/27/08 The Continuing Adventures of The Buckeye Rider
Cause and Correction
The first thousand miles with my new ’95 Triumph Sprint were pure bliss. An eight hundred mile trip to North Carolina thru the Appalachian Mountains on a quick and powerful machine This was followed by a ten day lay up to find the needed Suzuki parts to fix a leaking petcock and then the day after that was taken care of the Triumph started to run poorly when warm, surging very hard at 35mph becoming almost unridable in the city at any speed below 50mph. Another week with the Triumph in the garage and ‘Pa’ my trusty (!) Norton was once again my main ride.
I balanced the triple carbs every possible way. Each time the fuel tank had to be removed and rigged so the motor would run and still leave access to the adjusting screws. Each test drive revealed either little or no improvement or even worse. At one point it would accelerate like a dragster only to hesitate so hard at 5k rpm I would almost slam my face on the tank only to have it pick up again at 65k and jerk my neck back! This went on for three days until Sunday when I had adjusted the carbs for the third time in one day already and even though I knew just by the sound of the engine it wasn’t right I was putting it back together again. I decided to have one last thorough visual inspection. I checked to be sure no hoses were kinked, or the secondary ignition wires were not shorting to other parts when I noticed that the enrichment (choke) rods were sticking out further then normal. The choke cable was adjusted properly and the linkage was free so a more intense investigation was warranted.
The cause of all my problems (with the motorcycle that is) was that the choke cable pulled a flat bar that had three separate hooks, each connected to an enrichment plunger of the individual carb, the hook on the third carb had become disconnected and that caused the flat bar to be jammed on top of the #3 plunger and hold #1 & #2 ‘s plunger slightly open. Two carbs running with the chokes partially on and one with no choke!! It’s no wonder I had so much trouble trying to get this thing right!
I set the plunger bar into position; reset the carbs with the Monometer and the Sprint began to purr again. A short test drive confirmed the diagnosis, the bike was reassembled and now all is well (in my garage anyway)
It’s always something, check the simple things first!
Ride On
Dave
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