[Adrian II]

10 or 15w40 will do, ATF is popular too.

Beware, no drain plug on the primary case, so whatever you're using to catch the oil in, have some rag/paper towel handy.

A.

[Nift]

Little update to the sportsman

The knock from the engine turned out to be a missing tooth on the timing gear pinion!
Must have got cracked when the engine kicked back at some point.
So not as bad as it could have been.

Got it home and ran pretty smooth.
Until I stopped and when I tried to start again it kicked back. From then it only started on the electric starter, and would slowly die at idle (pretty fun stopped in traffic lol)

It's been doing something similar for a while now.

Any ideas would be welcome if someone has experienced similar

[Paul W]

An engine will die at idle if it’s running weak. Same with difficult starting.

[allanfox]

I think the mixture screw on a dellorto is the opposite to normal (well for me) so you take it out a bit to increase the fuel and richness whereas on many other carbs you take the screw out to add more air to the mixture.

Your symptoms could also be from the spark plug, a weal and irregular spark will backfire and stall. If you haven't already try an iridium, made a huge difference to mine and has been a first kick bike since I fitted it (starter removed)

https://accessories.hitchcocksmotorcycles.com/13774?cont_page=search-query&keyword=iridium

[tooseevee]

I think the mixture screw on a dellorto is the opposite to normal (well for me) so you take it out a bit to increase the fuel and richness whereas on many other carbs you take the screw out to add more air to the mixture.

   In general, if the fuel/air mixture screw is on the air cleaner side of the carb body it's an air screw. If it's on the manifold side, it's a fuel screw.

    In general, 1 1/2 turns out is a good starting point to get an engine started & dial in the mixture.

[Adrian II]

If you're experiencing difficult starting make sure the carburettor mounting isn't giving you an air leak, particularly if you've disturbed the air cleaner box. Instead of going for a one-piece flange rubber thingy for the Dell'Orto, Watsonian-Squire went for a custom alloy flange, sealed with a couple of O-rings over the corrugated carb stub, getting these refitted properly can be an absolute b*gger. See if you can find a Malossi 02-0555 one-piece carb rubber to replace it (as well as a narrow jubilee clip to fasten it nice and tight!)



A.

[allanfox]

As Adrian II also advised me, it's this one.

https://www.malossistore.com/en/it/rubber-straight-intake-manifold-32x44-for-phf-phbe-32-b-kawasaki-900-1000-2-3-cylinder-02_1135-P

I have bought one but not fitted the manifold and Dellorto carb yet but can see the holes centres are very slightly out and you need a needle file to open up a little.

But a nice piece of kit and 25% of a Z900 to boot!

[Adrian II]

The number I quoted has the 60mm mounting screw centres which would be a straight fit onto the Electra-X inlet port but has a bigger hole in the middle for the PHF36 carbs I've been using. These use the same body casting as the PHF32, just that Dell'Orto put er... a bigger hole in the middle. The 58mm centres on the 02 0115 match those on a late iron barrel 500 Bullet head, by the way.

As my learned friend says, a few minutes careful bodgery will get the 02 1135 to fit. A slim rat-tail file will do if you have no needle file.

A.

[Nift]

Hi guys,

Thanks all for the tips, will definitely be getting one of those carb-engine boots.

It was starting first kick nice and strong for the first half of the day- then after the kickback wouldn't start properly and died out. Just seems strange. There's something minor going on here that's putting it all out of whack, just need to find out what!

I have tried many spark plugs (NGK, champion, iridium and non iridium) so I think that's ok

[Adrian II]

You might also find the Dell'Orto tuning guide helpful, if you don't already have one. Here's a PDF, Eurocarb could still have printed versions.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c2ec6bfb27e39b10aa5afc3/t/5fb565a1ba49973ceed5c7d1/1605723563704/dellorto_manual_a_guide_1.1.pdf

A.