I've been riding and working on bikes (and cars) for a long time now, and I'm pretty good with carburetors, but I'm completely new to Triumphs and this wacky twin carb setup installed on this bike. It's a 1960 T100A (Tiger 500cc, unit) that has been hard-tailed, Forking by Frank, etc.
Carbs are twin 375/35's. Well, one is actually not a 375, but the body is identical and all functional parts have been swapped over to 375/35 specs (pilot, main, needle, slide including cutaway number correct). The carbs are on some (homemade?) long tube runners with velocity cones. I've cleaned them out, left was flooding, fixed that by buffing the (stupid plastic) float needle and seat. I've set the throttle stop to spec, pilot mixture screws, etc.
Jets and slide are correct for this model, although there are twice the carbs now. A 500cc unit Daytona has twin carbs with the same pilot sizes and larger mains, so I think this should at least start. Previous owner swore he had it running. Older guy with enough money and BMWs that I have no reason to doubt that.
Compression was about 90/95 cold with no carbs, and after kicking the sh*** out of the bike for a few days, compression is up to 170/175 dead cold with carbs, full throttle. Much better. Temperature in the garage is in the 40s to 50s lately. Sometimes it will pop once or twice through the exhaust. Usually nothing. Sometimes it will fire right up out of nowhere and rev higher than idle should be, but not to the moon. Best I've gotten was about 1 second a few days ago, then almost 2 seconds, and last night almost 3 seconds. Today nothing at all again.
I'm decent at kicking even though I'm pretty light, and I don't think that's the problem. Instructions say to depress some "control lever" to start on cold days and an "air lever" in the maintenance section only for "testing" and cold starts. These carbs have no such thing.
I've tried:
Adjusting settings up/down from stock
No throttle vs 1/8th, all the way to full throttle in case of flooding
Tickling. Waiting to clear any flooding and no tickling at all. Over-tickling.
Cleaning plugs. Inline plug tester shows strong spark
Lots of swearing and kicking. Even banged my shin once or twice when my foot slipped.
At this point, there is no reason to do "leg day" at the gym, but I'd really like to get this thing starting reliably.
Thanks in advance for any help! I'm dying to get this thing running!
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Update: As soon as I made this post, the stupid thing fired right up for close to 3 seconds and died with a pop of blue flame...
Carbs are twin 375/35's. Well, one is actually not a 375, but the body is identical and all functional parts have been swapped over to 375/35 specs (pilot, main, needle, slide including cutaway number correct). The carbs are on some (homemade?) long tube runners with velocity cones. I've cleaned them out, left was flooding, fixed that by buffing the (stupid plastic) float needle and seat. I've set the throttle stop to spec, pilot mixture screws, etc.
Jets and slide are correct for this model, although there are twice the carbs now. A 500cc unit Daytona has twin carbs with the same pilot sizes and larger mains, so I think this should at least start. Previous owner swore he had it running. Older guy with enough money and BMWs that I have no reason to doubt that.
Compression was about 90/95 cold with no carbs, and after kicking the sh*** out of the bike for a few days, compression is up to 170/175 dead cold with carbs, full throttle. Much better. Temperature in the garage is in the 40s to 50s lately. Sometimes it will pop once or twice through the exhaust. Usually nothing. Sometimes it will fire right up out of nowhere and rev higher than idle should be, but not to the moon. Best I've gotten was about 1 second a few days ago, then almost 2 seconds, and last night almost 3 seconds. Today nothing at all again.
I'm decent at kicking even though I'm pretty light, and I don't think that's the problem. Instructions say to depress some "control lever" to start on cold days and an "air lever" in the maintenance section only for "testing" and cold starts. These carbs have no such thing.
I've tried:
Adjusting settings up/down from stock
No throttle vs 1/8th, all the way to full throttle in case of flooding
Tickling. Waiting to clear any flooding and no tickling at all. Over-tickling.
Cleaning plugs. Inline plug tester shows strong spark
Lots of swearing and kicking. Even banged my shin once or twice when my foot slipped.
At this point, there is no reason to do "leg day" at the gym, but I'd really like to get this thing starting reliably.
Thanks in advance for any help! I'm dying to get this thing running!
------------
Update: As soon as I made this post, the stupid thing fired right up for close to 3 seconds and died with a pop of blue flame...