What you do to your MC today?

This old girl just passed inspection yesterday the deputy is a good dude rides sleds. I’ll be heading to the sos this week to get my ***le I have a plate coming fleebay going to go the authentic plate route . I also swapped out the standard headlight lamp for the one below another eBay purchase.

1X BA20D H6 S2 CSP LED Headlight Bulb 6000K 1000LM White Light High/Low Beam Kit

On my way to 100k by the end of the year.

Ride killed, might have flown to close to the sun...
This ride was combined with another mini group and ended up 50+ bikes. We took off from one of the guys skateboard shop and went straight through downtown again but at 10pm this time not 2am...
It was a full street takeover, wheelies stoppies, no red lights etc. all through downtown Dallas, constant horn honking, rev limiter shot etc.

Cops went to the skate shop (thanks Flock) and tried to tow all our cars, thank baby Jesus the landlord was down and told the cops to **** off.

I found all this out after a Grommer smoked a motorized vehicle pole on the Katy trail, ****ed up the clutch cover on the Grom and his foot. I gave a buddy of his my quick steel but we never saw them again.

5 minutes into the ride my son starts squawking the front tire on the trr125 is flat. I wasn't surprised because I didn't do anything with them just aired them up when I got the bike. At the first break I deployed the good caterpillar zip ties on the tire and it made the fill ride, it's all smoked which is ok.


PW new gearing is awesome, I was keeping with the pack no problem and sub 6200 rpm. A little lacking from a dig but not terrible or not rideable. Didn't change the jetting and never saw more than 288*F on the whole ride.
New lights are pretty good, this wasn't the best ride for testing dirt lights.

Edit: these pix are much later than they look.

Clutch worked great in the race, for the amount I participated in it


You know it's going to hurt when you have been in the air long enough to think, damn, this is going to hurt.

The last thing I recall while still being one with the bike was doing maybe 30 mph and the bars being at full lock, not sure if that was from clipping a tree or if the front tire slid on roots or something. I'm assuming that the front tire suddenly went from 0 traction to all the traction while at full lock engaging the ejector seat option and flung my ass over the top.

Landed maybe 30' down the trail flat on my back. Oof. Floundered around for a few minutes making sure everything was still attached.

My neck, left wrist, and right knee are sore.My right index finger is throbbing. Pretty sure I hooked it on the bars or brake lever on my way in to orbit.

All this for a venue I remembered not liking due to their ****ty beat the **** up trails once I got there.

I putted around and finished out the lap and started another but came across an A level guy a few minutes later who looked to have done the same thing. I stopped and helped get him situated for a minute then pulled off at the next opportunity.

**** that place, it's going on my never go back again list

That sounds like a **** show, sucks that the nanny state will keep all of us from doing anything fun that doesn't hurt anyone.

Rainy weekend, squeezed in a little over 100 miles last night to go grab dinner.

My buddy on the same line posted his video just now. I haven't watched it yet.

Alrighty folks, I need someone to 'splain me a thing or two about carbs.....

I bought this absolutely STUNNING '99 Honda 400EX from an old co-worker. It has super low hours, and has been very well maintained. For nearly it's whole life it has either been on his grandma's vineyard or on his 10 acres.

It fires up and idles great, putts around the yard just like you'd expect, and then (once warmed up) from 1/4-3/4 throttle it falls apart. Sputtering, missing, etc. Then at full throttle it comes back alive and rips.
It's all stock, stock pipe, jetting, etc. Anyhow, I popped the carb apart and soaked the jets in the crabpot overnight and blew them out. They looked fine. Put it all back together with a fresh properly gapped plug and it's exactly the same.
My thought is that the needle height is what's controlling the 1/4-3/4 range, and since it runs fine in the midrange when cold it must be running rich. So my thought is to raise the clip/drop the needle, which should lean it out once warmed up.
But if my buddy has never messed with the jetting or the needle height........why should I need to mess with it?
We both live in west Michigan near the lakeshore, so we're at about 675' elevation.

I did try running it with the gas cap off to test for a plugged vent hose. Nope.
I also have let it sit for a minute or two to 'refill' the bowl in the event that fuel wasn't flowing in quickly. Nope.

Anyhow, when I was beating my head against the wall with that WR450 one (or more) of y'all were spot-on with what the issue was......hoping to gather a bit of the collective insight on this one as well.

Thanks!

We had a similar issue with a similar year and condition 400ex. The aluminum had deteriorated and pinhole internally inside the carb, nothing we did to it made it run correctly. Ended up putting a Chinese carb on it, which we hate doing, but it worked out. Used the OEM jets where we could in the Chinese carb.

ew.
That's not what I wanted to hear!
Any idea where in the crab that pinhole was?
Maybe I can have a look in that region....

why do you keep doing this to yourself?

Steve300xcw said:

why do you keep doing this to yourself?

Click to expand...

I'm an absolute glutton for punishment.

To be 100% honest I didn't think that EITHER the WR450 or this 400EX were going to be projects. I'm still a little baffled at how that stupid fuel-idle screw fell out of the WR.....
Anyhow, this 400EX is one of the prettiest examples I have seen in a LONG time. It looks factory fresh. That said, it's possible that it's a bit freezer-burned.

JayMcJay said:

ew.
That's not what I wanted to hear!
Any idea where in the crab that pinhole was?
Maybe I can have a look in that region....

Click to expand...

We never actually found it but just assumed it was somewhere internal in the body of the carb because we couldn't physically see anything.

JayMcJay said:

ew.
That's not what I wanted to hear!
Any idea where in the crab that pinhole was?
Maybe I can have a look in that region....

Click to expand...

It’s a nice looking quad but those parts are old maybe try a $150 moose racing china carb vs $900 lectron guess it depends on how much you plan on riding it.

Did you clean the whole carb or just the jets? Clean the whole thing and blow it out well before you go buying stuff. I always try my best to stick with an OEM carb over a cheapo.

I haven’t given up on this carb yet. Far from it. I’m sure I’ll find some little piece of crud in this one.
I’m just trying to understand what is happening to make a rich condition in the mid-range. It seems like anything that’s plugging up the carb would block fuel flow and make it lean.

Cleaning the carb on an old bike, is just like checking the fuses on a rig before you go tearing it apart... Might be the fix, might not be. But if you dont do it, and go chase your tail and pull your hair out. It will have been the problem Its just kinda square one.

That thing have any inline filters, or no spill caps on the cank vent?

JayMcJay said:

haven’t given up on this carb yet

Click to expand...

How did it look internally any wear showing . I’ve had good luck getting oem needles and jets from motofrak overseas .

I bought a ultrasonic just for this.
Still haven't used it for carb but I intend to with pine sol.

Steve300xcw said:

Cleaning the carb on an old bike, is just like checking the fuses on a rig before you go tearing it apart... Might be the fix, might not be. But if you dont do it, and go chase your tail and pull your hair out. It will have been the problem Its just kinda square one.

That thing have any inline filters, or no spill caps on the cank vent?

Click to expand...

I don't believe there's an inline filter on the fuel, but I'll look more carefully when I take the crab back off.
There isn't a no-spill vent, and I did check running it with the gas cap loose.
I'm confident the crab is just dirty somewhere, that pretty much seems to be the universal issue with everything I own.

Did you drain the fuel tank and make sure it was clean? If not, do that and install an inline filter just to be safe.

Rolled over 18k miles on the Goldwing on the way to work this morning.

redneckK20s said:

Did you drain the fuel tank and make sure it was clean? If not, do that and install an inline filter just to be safe.

Click to expand...

My buddy did that this spring before I bought it.

Question here.....I've just watched a dozen videos of people doing cleanings on their 400EX carbs and I haven't seen anyone pull the choke assembly out. Of course everyone either uses and ultrasonic cleaner, or just hoses things out with a can of carb cleaner....
The screws look to be 'peened' from the back side, my guess is that Honda doesn't want them coming out and getting ingested into the motor. There's a little plastic bit in the choke linkage, and I typically try to get all plastic and rubber out of the carb before soaking it in the crabpot. But my crabpot basket is plastic.....so there are certainly plastics that can hold up to that stuff.....

It'll be fine, leave it in.

JayMcJay said:

inline filter on the fuel,

Click to expand...

I think the filter is in the nipple on the carb. My neighbor has a bug eye 400ex those carbs are goofy to me too almost like a car carb with all the hoses and accelerator pump. I'd think there's a better alternative for those along with the xr400 don't know much about them. I remember working on my friends son's dr350 and the carb was/is shot supposedly pumper carb is a upgrade on those they didn't want to spend the money also something in the clutch needs replaced so it got parked. I've mixed oem parts with the knock off carbs and its worked out ultimately a new oem replacement is best.

So I'm a pretty technical guy, and mostly believe in science and stuff. But carbs are a dark art. That's all there is to it.
I did the thing......tore the whole carb apart and soaked it and then blew it all out and then carefully put it back together.....and of course it runs like a top now. But what was in that body that I didn't get before that made it run rich in the midrange? I cleaned everything that has anything to do with the midrange the first go-around.........

There is supposed to be a filter in the nipple of the carb, it's missing. I'll get one ordered up and installed.

Yeah I'm not entirely sure, unless you had the needle jet in upside down but even then it wouldn't be rich I wouldn't think. Did you check float level? There's a chance the float got stuck enough to fill the bowl too far but usually it'll end up in the crankcase.

The float in this carb isn't adjustable. Usually there's a metal tab that you can bend up or down to set the level, but this one is all one injection molded piece. A few of the carb videos I watched mentioned that.
Anyhow, it's just one of those things I guess maybe I'll never understand.

I took my little dude's Polaris Predator 90's carb apart and started the cleaning process on it this evening. Holy crap, that thing was super skuzzy. No idea how it was running at all. I was through it probably 3 summers ago, but I guess that's the way she goes....

Like my GM instructor use to say “it’s pure ****ing magic”