Took her over to Berkeley to try out consistent freeway speeds, which lead to a problem I had the other day after a ride down the coast to Daly City.
Symptoms
- After a twenty minute ride at or above forty-five mph or so, she has problems accelerating through first and second. There is rapid surging, what sounds to be missing/backfires (but not very loud), and a complete inability to accelerate quickly. If I push through and make it to third she seems to run better. Sitting parked for thirty minutes is not enough time to solve this.
- Also under the same conditions, she absolutely refuses to acknowledge she has a first gear if I don't get her there before the stop. This leads to lugging her from the stop in second.
- Something was squeaking/rubbing with an extra person on the back.
- After hitting the kill switch and coasting into my parking spot (woke some baby last week while parking) I could hear something rubbing against the back wheel.
- I'm hoping the upcoming carb overhaul will help with the missing. Maybe it is a mixture issue? Is she colder or hotter than normal city driving after a long run at high speed? Compression?
- Oil change in the short run, clutch overhaul in the medium run.
- Shocks.
- Going to track the rubbing down tomorrow by coasting down hills with the engine off. The wheel probably needs to be replaced anyways due to a largish flat spot on one side of the rim. Spokes shot to hell. [update: drum brake?]
In the next day or two I'm going to head by Charlie's to pick up a gasket for the oil change and to get his recommendation for oil type. Hopefully he'll also have that front brake light activation switch I'm looking for.
After the oil change, in some sort of order:
- Carb overhaul
- Points
- Brakes
- Clutch overhaul
hi - I just found your site - it's pretty great so far - I am going through the old posts so ignore me if you've got an answer already, but I have the same problem where it's difficult to get the bike (mine's a '73) into first gear (or even neutral sometimes) after coming to a stop - I've learned two things to cope with this: 1. when approaching a spot where you know you're going to stop, shift down while the bike is still moving and 2. if you have to make an unexpected stop and you can't get back into first, try inching the bike forward (or backward) with the clutch in - this always helps me - someone at a local repair shop (ace motorcycle in chicago) mentioned something about an alignment pin or gear involved here - if it's out of line, you can't shift, so you have to move it around to get things back in line - I suspect that, if this is true, this part is moving while the bike is moving which is why it's easier to down shift while the bike is moving
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