The Front End Gets Light...

Approaching 48k miles on the ZRX, I decided it was time to go through the carbs and see how they looked. I also thought it would be a decent swing at the intermittent starting problem I’ve been having. So I rode the bike out to John’s place on Saturday morning. I hadn’t seen his new place since he moved out to the boonies a couple of years ago. It was nice to see his new home in the country. He has spent the last two years transforming it from a junkyard into a habitable and comfortable home place. He reports removing a dozen junk cars, some 25 full-size old-school satellite dishes, and upwards of 10 thousand pounds of other various scrap metal.

As for the carbs, the short answer is they looked pretty good for almost a decade of hard riding and sometimes sitting while I waited out the cold Kansas winters. There was a little bit of varnish buildup, but really nothing worthy of a photo op. John adjusted the float height on the second and third carb, but they weren’t that far off to begin with. Same goes for the carb sync; they were pretty well synced when we started. In lieu of an actual manometer, he used a homemade vacuum gauge device to sync the carbs (see pics). John used the standard clear tube trick to measure fuel levels in the float bowls. I had only heard about the process for measuring fuel level with clear tubes, and I didn’t have a clue about the logic or the physics behind it. So that was an entertaining bit of education for me.

I also changed the spark plugs while we had the gas tank off. I had done this previously, but I remember using long ratchet extensions and it being a little more difficult. This time, John started off by asking me if I had my own plug wrench in my tool kit. Sure enough, I did. John explained that the factory tool kit often contains the best plug wrench for the job. And of course it was. I wound up not really needing any assistance for that part of the job, but it’s always more fun wrenching with a buddy around.

We started at around 9am. We worked right out in the sun on an old rusty workbench in a fair bit of shade. I wound up getting sunburned on the back of my neck. (I’m a bona fide redneck now.) We skipped lunch of course and had the bike buttoned back up around 4:30pm. I test rode the bike first and was pleased. The throttle at idle seems a bit more responsive now. Not sure if that’s in my head, but that’s the only difference I noticed.

I’m not sure why, but John had never ridden my bike. So I suggested he take it out for a spin. Sure enough, the bike wouldn’t start for him. So clearly my intermittent starting problem persists. That’s a story for another day. When the bike finally fired up for John, he carefully crept down to the end of his long gravel driveway. Then – out of my sight but still very much within earshot – John evidently became possessed by the spirit of the great Eddie Lawson himself as he tore south on Missouri Highway Double “H”. A few moments went by and I thought the storm had passed when I heard him (still farther away) wind it through the gears for a second time. When he returned, he was clear that there is nothing wrong with how the bike is performing, other than the front end reportedly “getting real light” in first and second gear. I told him that’s why the imprint of my nose is permanently smudged on the gas gauge.

We decided to head into the nearest town for some Mexican food, so he pulled the SV650 out of the living room and fired her up. We had a good dinner and parted ways at around 7pm. I rode over to a friend’s house and we watched Kansas come back yet again and beat Ohio State to make it into the NCAA basketball Championship game. I flipped my dark shield up and rode home at around 11pm. The air was still warm after a daytime high somewhere in the eighties. It was 25 miles of super slab back to my place, but it was one of the more peaceful rides I’ve had in recent memory. Weary of deer, I kept my speed down and there seemed to be absolutely no wind at all. The round headlight mod really does make a difference. It was just a quiet, calm ride. 99 miles of riding for the day.