Hello,
Recently my left carb needle clip popped out of place and I had to get in there and reset it.
It was set to the second from the bottom (second richest). I moved it to the middle spot because I had black plugs from a bit of a smokey left cylinder. I think I may be burning a little oil off for some reason. Well the middle spot was too lean and the left side would bog and not make power in 1/2 to 3/4 throttle.
I have two questions.
1. When I moved the clip back to the original setting I found that the clip would slip off the needle. I imagine the clip ground the needle out a tiny bit and wasn't snug, so that's the reason it slipped off (who knows). Anyways, my solution was to take some needle-nose pliers and just sort of squeeze the clip ends closer together so it had a tighter fit. Is this a bad idea and should I just have replaced the needle and/or clip? My concern is what if I weakened the clip material and over many miles, what if the clip breaks, and some of it gets sucked into the combustion chamber? Seems unlikely, but is that ever something to be concerned about, or have you heard of it happening?
2. Like I said my left cylinder runs rich. Well, it runs fine and feels correctly tuned, but the plugs are always black due to what I think is a bit of oil getting into the combustion chamber. I think I discovered that you can't fix that by tuning leaner, because you don't have enough gas to burn so the tuning is off. Does that mean the only way to fix this problem would be to locate the source of the oil leak and stop it? Currently it doesn't seem to affect much, I've never "fouled" a plug to the point that it won't spark anymore, I just replace them once every three-four months, no big deal.
Bike runs great again now.
Thanks!
honda305.com Forum
Vintage Honda Owners, Restorers, Riders and Admirers
