After the restoration: 19200-mile service
Thursday, Nov 26, 2009 (Thanksgiving) [18,821 miles]
On the way back from dropping the rear shock of my GS off for a rebuild earlier this week I noticed a loss of power. The hump in the San Mateo - Hayward bay bridge was easily taken in 4th on my way to Livermore; I had to downshift to third on the way home. Plus, the bike wanted to die at stop signs. And I ran out of gas after turning off the petcock on the way to my garage. Normally I make it to the garage plus 15-30 seconds of idle before the carbs are empty.
Today I did some testing:
- Gas flow: OK
- Carb floats: OK
- Spark plugs: OK
- Compression: Not OK.
The troublesome side
The compression on the right side was it's normal 175+ PSI. The compression on the left was closer to 60. That's not good. I popped the valve cover off of the left side to take a look.
Too tight!
A litle too tight
The exhaust was way too tight, one half of what it should be. The intake was a bit tight. I crossed my fingers and re adjusted both valves. Maybe I'll get lucky. After getting the valves set to spec I re-attached the compression tester.
Too low
Two sick babies
No change. The head will have to come off. I hate working on two bikes at the same time and the GS is already apart due to the shock rebuild and I need to pull its FD to get a cracked wheel flange replaced. The R69S will have to wait.
Sometimes two bikes are NOT enough.
