Yup.

Weather has been sucky, so no work on the lawn mower today.. Maybe tomorrow.

 

Fattened up the idle a little bit on the 76. Didn't help the stumble much, but the 4 barrel pulls harder.

 

^that kind of makes no sense. did you adjust the idle mixture screws or the throttle stop screw?

i kind of did the big 3 upgrade to my 81 and cleaned up the electrical by the battery. now have 3 body ground wires and 2 engine ground wires run straight to the battery. i also installed a 2nd output wire on the alternator that runs to my power distribution center. voltage at the battery is now 0.3V lower while idling than when i started but voltage gauge doesn't seem to fluctuate as much. i also painted my voltage regulator since i was back there and cleaning up grounds. all was good until i was driving through town and pop. all my dash and marker lights quit working. the fuse blew. i tried replacing it but there seems to be too much sparking going on so i think i might have a short or something somewhere. might have to wait till the next sunny day to take care of this problem.

 

Idle screw didn't do much. The mixture screws I could barely tell what it was doing. But turning them in made it stumble less. I am starting to think about adjusting the primary metering rod too.

 

so you realize by turning the mixture screws in you are leaning things out and dumping less fuel in the engine? should make it run a bit better. did you adjust the left and right mixture screw equally?

 

I coulda sworn that you turned clock wise to increase the fuel.

SHIAT. Oh, well, runs better.

And yes, I did. I used the Stanley on my screw driver as a reference.

 

if it is running better than it must have been running rich at idle. if you get some more time you should keep adjusting them until you get it idle as high as possible. that is about the best place to have it.

 

If you are working on a Thermoquad carb you are right. Clockwise richens the mix and counter-clockwise leans. If adjusting the mix screws and not much happens get a carb rebuild kit and do just that.

A site for reference. http://www.offroadexchange.com/tquad.htm

 

I took measurements off of it today.

Then messed with the motorcycle. Fell victim to the leaking petcock valve, which went into the carburetor, which filled it and went into the cylinder head, which then leaked passed it and casually filled the crank case.

Found this out b/c...I went to start it and it acted all funny. Always fires on first push w/o issue. Took several labored efforts and then it finally started on....but not smooth. Figured it just needed to warm up, right? Started to back out and the wife is pointing down. I see a nice spewing line of oil out the left side near the gear case.

So I almost....hydrolocked it with gas...! No, the petcock valve is not manual on/off. It flows when there is vacuum. The technology of the late 90s you know...forgot about the deterioration of the soft goods in the petcock. $80 later for the petcock, some cheap oil, and new plugs....fired right up today. No leaks...yet.

 

Yeah, Thermoquad.

I thought I was going insane for a minute there, thanks for reassuring me.

As far as re-building, I could just buy a Holly re-built TQ for $200.
And it's professionally re-built and has the base settings done by a major manufacturer.