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RE: LABiker: Outranked by Major Engine Damage



>Tune in Some Day Real Soon Now when we find out what happened to the
>Guppy, and how many months it takes to get engine parts from deep in
>the bowels of England.

Current status:

Pro-Italia is (so they say) undermanned and over worked, so they
suggested that I send the Guppy to South Bay Triumph. They even offer
to cart the bike over themselves for free (it's about 30-40 miles).
The bike is still sitting, undiagnosed, as of this evening, though
Matt Capri (of South Bay Triumph) assures me that they will get on it
on Tuesday. That would make it exactly a week before anyone even takes
a look-see. This sucks.

On the transportation front, Brian has Rrrr back as of this morning
with my thanks. After doing 300+ miles on it over the last few days, I
have a clearer understanding of why seemingly normal and sensible
people might subject themselves to bikes like that. While the power
wasn't all that much better than my Sprint, the handling was
top-notch. After the first 50 miles or so it wasn't even that
uncomfortable. Well, except for the sitting-on-my-privates part. Is
that *really* necessarily in this kind of bike?

I am not entirely without motorized transportation, though. Brian
agreed to sell [1] me his clapped-out Radian if I could get it
running, which I did. It has been sitting for several months and
wouldn't start when we tried. I re-filled the battery with water and
put it on a charger. Then, while the battery was charging, I removed
the carburetors and cleaned the slides with carburetor cleaner as they
seemed to be sticking a bit. With the slides freed up, I drained the
old gas out of the float bowls and took a couple of them off to look
for deposits, but everything looked pretty clean in there so I left it
alone. Put it all back together, replaced the battery, primed the
carbs and, after a bit of cranking - it fired up. Score!

Well, close to score, anyway. The bike is running massively rich (lots
of black smoke when you give it gas), has blown fork and shock seals
(for a nice bouncy ride) a too-tight steering head that doesn't
operate very smoothly, and has the odd habit of slowly heading into a
tank-slapper if you take your hands off of the bars [2]. So now I need
a little advice in a couple of areas:

- - Fuel: While I never have done any real carb work (all the engines I
worked on were fuel injected), I have heard recommendations here from
time to time about shimming the needle valves to correct a too-rich
condition. That would be the bowl-filling valve operated by the float,
right? To lean it out a bit, I assume that I would want to set it to
shut-off with a smige less fuel in the bowl, right?

- - Suspension: I know that the instability I feel is caused by either
worn swing-arm bushings or worn steering head bearings (the tires are
new and correctly inflated), but I cannot detect any play in either
the swingarm or the front end. The steering head bearings feel kind of
rough though and probably require replacement even though I cannot
detect any play - could that cause the instability I am feeling? Also
- - any suggestions on inexpensive replacements for the shocks and/or
rebuild options for the forks?

I kinda like this bike (I fondly remember having one when they were
new) and would like to fix it up as inexpensively as possible. I know
it ain't worth much, but I think it's got some potential. It looks
pretty cool with it's new bar-end mirrors, too...

[1] $10.00 and other valuable considerations.

[2] That is it starts oscillating slowly with the oscillations
gradually becoming both larger and more forceful. A light (one finger)
touch is all that is require to prevent the movement or stop it once
it has started.

- --
A host is a host from coast to coast ..................... Rick
Damiani
and no one will talk to a host that's close ....
rickd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Unless the host (that isn't close) .........
rickd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
is busy, hung or dead ..............................NGI# T695 DoD
#2659



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