As the bike has been unused for so long, a squirt of carb cleaner (I think) into the carbs inlets (again, I think) is normaly the way the proceed in these situations. Someone with a better memory than me (not difficult) might confirm/deny this.

Q: Did you adjust the floats in the carbs and fiddled with the jets etc, or just balanced them?

Not sure of how difficult/expensive the helicoil thing might be, but you could get a second hand sump off eBay or maybe someone here has a spare one; should cost about £15 + a new gasket... Hmm, too expensive?

Wow I have just spent 2 hours of my day reading your saga through lifes ups and downs. I would like to take my hat of to you. My partner of 15 years left as my NC became an obsession so praise be to your wife. Ok not starting I have had several instances where the head has been scratched and why don't you start. Everyone states try this try that which is good but one area is greatly overlooked is the CDi if you have access to a spare try it I've got through two in 7 years. Also I notice you only had one throttle cable perhaps adjust the setting of this to bring down the revs. Let me know how you get on.

An inspiration to us all.

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the replies; Speedy will defo try the carb cleaner it's a good call I reckon. Scotjell not thought about the CDI (don't have a spare one either) .. although the ignition checks out and I'm getting a good spark so does the CDI effect the fire up in any other way?

Well last time mine went I was on my way up the M5 to see Riley and the bike was running fine knowing I'd replaced battery and reg rec then out of the blue the bike was coughing and spluttering like I was out of fuel then would start and I'd go 100 yards and it would stall not turn over and then it would go again. I got home and the next day swapped it with my other one luckily had 2 ncs at the time and ran like a dream again. My other one went when the bike like yours had been laid up outside and just got damp I suppose. So got one of GF. Worth a try as it seems you have a good helper on here for tools battery etc.

scotjell wrote:Well last time mine went I was on my way up the M5 to see Riley and the bike was running fine knowing I'd replaced battery and reg rec then out of the blue the bike was coughing and spluttering like I was out of fuel then would start and I'd go 100 yards and it would stall not turn over and then it would go again. I got home and the next day swapped it with my other one luckily had 2 ncs at the time and ran like a dream again. My other one went when the bike like yours had been laid up outside and just got damp I suppose. So got one of GF. Worth a try as it seems you have a good helper on here for tools battery etc.

Hi Mate in that case will give it a shot .. cheers for the info hoping to take a look at it on the weekend will try and post and update soon as.

Ok update time .. for anyone looking at my posts that is LOL

I grabbed the vacuum gauges from Speedy this morning (cheers mate) and got to work this afternoon. First off I just adjusted the singular carb screw to see if this would make any difference and low and behold the bike 'almost' came to life i.e. I had a shed load of activity from the exhaust and the bike pretty much started then died.

So I reckon it's my shoddy balancing act. Anyway, I had intended to whip off the carbs and sort out the carb clips, routing of hoses and make sure the throttle cable was spot on at some point so grabbed the chance to do this. I got it all sorted and attempted to balance the carbs by eye before sticking them back on. After some faffing (as usual) getting the carbs back on I attempted to fire it up. Unfortunately my balancing act was not good enough so it didn't start up and I'd lost the race against the sun for the day - so had to call it a day.

If the weather holds out tomorrow I reckon I might have this sorted

Yip like a very bad soap opera the saga continues at my end.

I got out this afternoon to work on the bike optimistic that I could get it going. First thing I did was to drain the fuel tank as I had the feeling that my fuel was ropey and indeed it was as it came out with a yellow tinge to it. After putting in some fresh fuel I gave it a shot but no joy. I then tweaked the carb balancing screws but still no joy. I then swapped out the reg-rec and cdi but still no joy. Finally, I checked the sparks again but that all checked out.

Anyway, my neighbour and I got chatting (he's always been interested in helping out) and it turns out he's mates with Bill Bunn (chap who owns a motorcycle garage in Ealing). He calls him up and I have a chat with him over the phone guessing that he knowns his stuff after having been into bikes for decades. Anyway, I go through everything with him and he cuts me short and says "mate it's your carbs they are all gummed up with crap, get them off and clean them out again".

Having exhausted every avenue I can think of that's the route I'm going for. I've taken the carbs off but don't have the time to fix them atm but will do them during the week. One thing I did find straight off the bat was the slides were sticking and a two of the fuel gauzes/filters had got wedged in their holes - suspect for sure.

Anyway, whilst I'm here anyone shed any light on the gauzes? I have a couple of sets of carbs and one set has cylindrical gauze's and my current set has wedge shaped gauzes and neither are interchangeable with the their respective screws. The cylindrical ones seem to be more robust but have smaller outlets sizes so how does this effect the carb setup?

Scabby carbs is an obvious one dude..and altough I have taken a fair few carbs to bits, I cannto picture what you are telling us about the different gauzes - can you get a pic up?

I have cheese wedged ones in mine and have a spare set (I think) of carbs with these fitted if you need some PM me and will post them. Good luck.

So I was not been able to work on the bike last couple of weekends but in the meantime I got the carbs all cleaned up. I made sure the slides lifted easily and balanced the carbs by eye (when I say balanced I made sure there was an equal'ish gap in each butterfly).

Well firstly some bad news - today my wife gave me a deadline of a couple of week i.e. the bike has to be done or she will personally sell it off on ebay I completely sympathise with her since it has been sat outside for what feels like donkeys now and every time I work on it I tell her "it'll be done soon, promise".

Anyway, today I whipped on on the carbs put everything on properly and attempted the start up. Firstly, there was nothing - the solenoid didn't make a sound and there was no attempt to even start. I did panic because this was not how I left the bike last time. I checked over the electrics and one of the yellow wires in the regulator had come loose so I checked them all to be sure.

Once all fixed up I gave it another go and after a couple of refusals it burst into life and I mean well and truly burst at 8k revs "on choke". I laughed out loud because I could swear the bike had heard my wife speak!

So the goods news is that it lives! - Bill Bunn was spot on about cleaning up the carbs (although there weren't actually that bad tbh). However from the noise I could tell I'd done a bad job of balancing them so I set about doing that as I had vacuum gauges courtesy of Speedy.

Alas I made a right balls up of it couldn't get them to balance at all to the point where I'd stalled the bike and basically went back to square one and the bike wouldn't start. At least I know that is where the problem now lies .. this is a trimmed down version of may day since I had to fart around trying to balance the carbs and the 7mm socket I was using kept getting stuck and falling off and was a total bitch to get back - twice I had to take off the carbs and I still couldn't balance them by eye. I was trying to ensure the smallest possible gap was showing in each butterfly but at that setting the bike still didn't start.

Well the clock is now ticking I have my fingers well and truly crossed now - you might see a load of things come up for sale otherwise but I really hope it doesn't come to that.