The Snail

[JJ Autosleeper]

Ordered some neoprene foam self adhesive strip from Camthorne Industrial Supplies via Ebay. Plus some spray adhesive. Last time I had some of this it was hardly sticky at all. Will see what turns up. Thanks for your suggestion.

 

[Panky]

Once it's on rub the back of it with some talc as foam says a bit sticky where it's been rolled up.

 

[colinthefox]

Sometimes the self adhesive isn't very sticky at low temperatures. I usually warm the foam, and the surface to be stuck to with a hot air gun. Or leave the van in the baking summer sun for a while before sticking!

Or did you mean that the spray adhesive wasn't sticky?

 

[JJ Autosleeper]

Sometimes the self adhesive isn't very sticky at low temperatures. I usually warm the foam, and the surface to be stuck to with a hot air gun. Or leave the van in the baking summer sun for a while before sticking!

Or did you mean that the spray adhesive wasn't sticky?

I meant that the self adhesive strip was not very sticky last time I had some (for the engine cover).

 

[sunbeamsam]

Getting quite frustrated setting the carbs up, I’ve had them on and off about a dozen times now. Top end is fine so I think I’ve got the main jets and needle positions about right. The problem is with the idle circuit, either I can get a good idle (been hard to get it rich enough) or I can get a good cruise (Hard to get it lean enough). Tried a range of idle jets and have started to play with different slow idle air jets. Waiting for some more sizes to turn up in the post.

 

[Panky]

You're on the last leg now of a long project, keep at it I know you'll get it right in the end. Unfortunately I know nothing of bike carbs so can't offer anything useful.

 

[JJ Autosleeper]

All finished. New seals arrived and are fitted. Panel painted and stained. Seals were sticky enough from Camthorne and UK stick not from China. Ordered via EBay. Not applied and talc to them. Will see how they are when installed. If they look likely to stick to the top or short sides I’ll apply some talc.
Now for the other sides.....

 

[sunbeamsam]

So...

quite a bit to catch up reporting on.

spent forever taking the carbs on and off making adjustments. My detailed notes reached 37 sets of combinations before I stopped writing things down - needle position, main jet size, air jet size, pilot jet size, pilot screw position etc. Still running lean idle and rich cruise... so with a family camping trip planned for the following day I decided to go for a long drive and see what happened.

went surprisingly well, for a while, probably did 10 miles of A road before pulling on to the motorway for the home stretch. Then went really lumpy, then went really lean, mild panic, put booster pump on which restored the mixture back up, performance rubbish. Limped home. Went to bed worrying about burnt out exhaust valves.

in the morning I found this :



View attachment 7160

 

[sunbeamsam]

 

[sunbeamsam]

Phew! Seems it sucked the air filter in and ran rich sotting up a plug. I did a compression test and all was good. family camping trip T-4 hours. felt mildly optimistic given the state of the other plugs. Had cup tea then took the carbs off to check things over (I can now do this in 6 minutes). Weird, weird and bad. The idle screws had all vibrated looser, all by a different amount. the required 3+ turns was clearly too much.

T-2 hours. Thought fuckit. Remembered I had a spare set of carbs I’d bought when boozed on eBay. Unwrapped them, sprayed them with carb cleaner, took them apart, found that the jets were roughly the right size (whatever that may be), put them on. Started her up, all good. Changed the air jets slightly. All slightly better. Started her up, left the booster pump on and drove 70 miles on the hottest day of the year!

had a great long weekend.



drove back a slightly longer way. did 150 miles, managed 19mpg and after that the plugs looked like

could have been worse!

 

[Panky]

That looks pretty good, maybe a little lean. But from an unknown set of carbs it's bloody marvelous
What was the performance like? 19mpg - I guess you weren't hanging about.

 

[sunbeamsam]

so i'm thinking my very cheap narrowband afr gauge and unknown O2 sensor might be playing tricks on me. Performance is definitely better when it is showing very very rich. I've been battling to to lean it out at mid range but this certainly hasn't improved the performance, perhaps i'm fighting the design of the carbs chasing a nonsense reading?

Annoyingly my local rolling roads aren't interested in doing bike carbs in a commervan. I've found a place in Gillingham Dorset that are up for having a go but that's a bit of a trek. I'm tempted to get a wide band set up - something like PLX and having another go. Ideally I need to find one with an phone app that can act as a data logger.

In the meanwhile i've been playing with LED rear lights. Got these 12watt units

 

[sunbeamsam]

 

[sunbeamsam]

 

[sunbeamsam]

 

[sunbeamsam]

soldered some tags on which allow them to be surface mounted on the bolt heads through the pop top. The brakes need a bit more thinking. Added a resistor to allow the brake/sides to be different brightnesses and a diode to stop the sides/brakes illuminating each other - without it turning the sidelights on makes the 3rd brake light glow.

epically bright. really pleased

 

[sunbeamsam]

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is engine venting. I’d previously had it connected up to the single carbs ram pipe. This seemed quite effective at creating just enough vacuum to reduce oil leaks but I can’t see a neat way of doing it with bike carbs so am looking at an exhaust based method

 

[sunbeamsam]

So I bought some stainless wire for my mig welder and welded the threaded boss on - I was quite surprised, came out neater than my normal welding!

i‘ve also discovered I’ve got a leaking waterpump which is a bit of an arse. Given all the other jobs I want to get done this winter I’ve taken the engine cowling off and the radiator out.

question for you wise chaps out there - if I were to fit an Electric water pump with fancy controller I’m guessing I wouldnt actually need the thermostat, housing, etc I could just make up two plates, one on the head, one on the engine? This would clear some space for the leccy water pump. I’d fit a shorter belt between the crank and alternator.

 

[sunbeamsam]

 

[colinthefox]

If I were to fit an Electric water pump with fancy controller I’m guessing I wouldnt actually need the thermostat, housing, etc.

The thermostat speeds engine warm-up by cutting off the radiator circuit and forcing coolant round the bypass circuit at low temperatures so there is a very much reduced volume of coolant to warm up. Without a mechanical thermostat, the whole system capacity would have to warm up slowly. Circulation is needed round the engine at all times to avoid local boiling and mix the warm and cool coolant, so the pump should operate all the time, even when cold. I guess that rules out getting rid of the thermostat. Without a mechanical thermostat, the pump would overcool the engine even with a tiny flow. If you've ever had a thermostat which doesn't shut off tight, you will know that the engine doesn't often get up to temperature.