Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Performance Mods Could Someone Please Kick Me?

Doh! Not being able to leave well enough alone I decided to balance my carbs today. I've done this several times before and after changing needles, jest and even exhaust since last, I decided it was time to do it again. Warmed the bike up, increased the rpm's, connecting the Carbtune II to the vacuum ports and HEY! The balance was way off!

OK. Turning the balance screw one, two, three and I don't know how many turns and nothing happened. After a couple of minutes i looked at the headers... Blue as f****** h**l

Then I realized what I had done. One of the two hoses from the Carbtune were upside down and because of that the reading went totally crazy (you who also use the Carbtune know what I mean). I had leaned out everything and got myself the blueing I have avoided for three years. Now I guess the only thing to do is removing the headers and try to buff the bluing out.

Lessons learned (and this is why I admit my foul up here):

1. RTFM (Read The F******* Manual) once more before doing anything crucial.

2. Take it slow and check and double-check that you're doing right.

3. Leave well enough alone if you can.

Well, that's about it. I was ready to get a bicycle instead, but now I have calmed down...


Sorry about the profanity...

Bummer . . . consider yourself kicked. BTW--I accidentally came up with an easier method to blue headers: forget to turn the petcock ON and fire her up! Amazingly quick procedure.

just to add to the souble checking... On Pat's site for ballancing the carbs, he suggests swapping the tubing once you get them ballanced to double check, seems like a nice way to do it!

You are not alone.

I don't know how many times I've gone to work on something knowing it was a fairly simple job only to have it turn out to be a nightmare because I did something dumb!

Oh, wait a minute. That wasn't me! It was my evil twin!!

As to me?
I thought I made a mistake once but I was wrong

Sorry to hear that Bengt!

Guess Bluejob will fix it?

Blue pipes, hell I think its about time we all got over this syndrome and just ride the things. Now you guys over there have a few months of storage don't you??? Just bring everything back up to standard then for now ride ride ride....
I can say that because my pipes aren't blue....yet

LOL, Funny Piper -
I had to laugh at this because I've been doing a lot of work on my BA getting ready for a long trip this summer and last weekend I setup my Morgan to synch the carbs. Took the rubber caps off and connected the Carbtune lines pressed the starter button and the bike would start run for about a second then die. After trying this about 10 times I finally took the Carbtune lines off and reinserted the rubber caps. I was starting to wonder if it was something I had done? The bike finally started and continued running but it was running really rough. It hadn't been running in over a month and it was only about 45 degrees in my garage so I thought maybe it just needed to warm up.
Errah, nope. I had unplugged the spark plug lead for the left cylinder when I was re-routing my throttle cables and had forgotten to plug it back in. All in all it didn't run bad on 1 cylinder. Like you said "someone kick me".

I have a hat in my garage that someone gave me as a gag gift with a picture of Moe from the 3 Stooges on the front of it. On the back in big letters it says "MOE". Whenever I do something stupid like this I make myself wear "the Moe" for a few hours to remind me I'm not as smart as I think I am.

Keith

Spent a couple of hours in my neighbor's garage/shop yesterday. When not drooling over his Vincent, Matchless or BSA:s his buffing wheel and I managed to buff most of the unwanted colors out. Thanks for your answers and suggestions. Keith, I'm gonna get me a hat like that!

Just uploaded a picture of "the Moe" to my gallery for laughs.

Keith

Quote:

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I had unplugged the spark plug lead for the left cylinder when I was re-routing my throttle cables and had forgotten to plug it back in. All in all it didn't run bad on 1 cylinder.

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Funny you should say that. A couple of years ago I was working on the bike(now I can't recall what I was doing) but like you I had taken one of the sparkplug wires off. Well when I was done I wanted to go for a ride. Started the bike up and took off. The bike was stuggling the whole way so I decided to go home and check out what was wrong. Well half way around the block it hit me- Did I put the plug wires back on? So I pull over to the side of the road and checked. Sure enough I had forgotten to put one back on. I snapped it on and the bike ran great.
We've all had our moments when we've done things that are ... well not too bright.

Hey Bengt!
My motionpro carb synch sucks mercury (Hg). I tried Dinqua's suggestion of switching tubes and found a moderate difference. I switched them several times and split the difference. My bike now runs as slick as snot on a gold tooth.
Please read my signature. I was finishing a rebuild on my Yamaha 650 carbs 29 years ago when I received a call from one of my wife's workmates saying she had a miscarriage (i didn't know she was pregnant). I hurridly(sp?) tightened the last carb to manifold bolts and took off to the hospital 10 miles away at full throttle over 110mph. I happened to look in my mirror to see the familiar California Highway Patrol's steady burning red light through a trail of blue smoke. I had forgotten to tighten the first carb to manifold bolts, started sucking air and burned a hole in my piston. I pulled over, told my story to the cop, and he had sympathy enough to let me go (knowing i had to spend a bundle on repairs). Anyway, after a short one cylinder ride to the hospital, I found out that Raynea was not pregnant but suffering gastroenteritits from oysters we had eaten at the Morro Bay Oyster Festival. Please read my signature - it happens to all of us. Besides, when I see another Triumph, I almost always look at the headers - they're supposed to be blue (if you like the retro look - that's just retro Triumph). Just ride safe. It's only a few months before that "Move To Alabama Dust" hits the ground again.
Your Brother,
Dennis
p.s. I am about to prepare my hard bags for painting. Wish me luck!!!

Thanks Dennis! Well, I have tried to polish the headers now. Took them off and asked my friendly brit-bike-neighbour if I could use his buffer. The blue and most of the gold went away, but it seems like my headers were chromed after all and nor just polished stainless as I thought. I ate my way down through the coating and to me the headers now look like ape-dung. I even called my dealer and asked how much he wanted for a new pair: SEK5760!!!! That's around USD 800!!!1 Too much just for looks since the function still is there.
Oh well, you learn from your mistakes. At least she's running on both cylinders

Good luck with your painting! I'm sure you'll succeed if you don't hurry it!

How about using header wrap ? or maby paint them black. trumptrash