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I took the 1990 750 Sport in to PJ's January 17th, or thereabouts. While I was at a conference in CA week before last, I got a message from Mike that the bike was ready to be picked up. I explained that I had a ride coming up on Saturday, and would get there Tuesday to release it from custody.
It turns out that Tuesday my usual ride over to PJ's was going to be in Portales, so I asked a ride of one of my co-workers. Come lonche, he drove me over stopping once at his brother-in-law's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition new house (airs April 27) and again Bangkok Cafe (IMHO the best Thai in Burque). It was close to 1:00 pm by the time I arrived at the shop.
It took some time for the paperwork to be processed, but it was my understanding that that would be the only delay. While I waited for the bike to be rolled around, I walked around to the back of the shop, where T Technician Shannon was making some last minute adjustments to the cables. The PO (or his mechanic) had installed spark plug terminal screws in line around the choke cable inners. So I waited for about one hour while Shannon removed them. I was 2½ hours into my lunch "hour" by the time I left.
The bike ran great back to the office. In fact the shifting was easier, the clutch action felt lighter, and the carburetion was definitely improved. When I parked the bike at the office I smelled a slight whiff of gasoline. Looking around the bike, I saw no puddles, and so I decided to ride it home (it was my only way home at that point) and see if the smell went away. I mean, these things go away on their own some times, right?
The ride home was worse. The bike ran great, but the gas smell, especially at stop lights, was beginning to make my head light. I worried that a windblown cigarette butt was cause me to torch up completely. I noticed that the smell was stronger on the right hand side of the bike. When I pulled up to the house, Roomie right away asked "What is that smell?" Clearly this bike was going back to the shop where it had just had a large one's worth of service done to it. I called Mike and explained and arranged to bring it back on Friday.
On Friday, I ride the thing over to PJ's, and it took no more than pulling up to the service department door for them to all acknowledge that something was amiss. Mike rolled the bike back into the shop, and Shannon, Mike, and I all put our heads underneath the bike to see what was going on. A fuel "Y" was at first suspected, but then I noticed the overflow spigot from the float bowl (which should have been routed underneath the motorcycle as did the LH carb) was dripping gas onto the case. No wonder the fumes were overwhelming! The gas would pool there and evaporate.
My guess is that the float is not floating or the float needle is not sealing and the bike overflows gas. In any case, it is definitely something they should have caught going through the carbs for its "altitude adjustment."
So the bike is back at PJ's. Roomie noted that the 851 took a while to leave PJ's last year.
Posted by Underblog at April 20, 2008 7:00 AM
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