hi guys.

Basically, on tuesday i rode my bike to work, it felt as though it was bogging down and had barely half the power im used to. When i got home, i checked that the chain wasn't too tight, then i checked the sparks which were all quite oily so i brushed them clean. Also took the carbs off and cleaned the jets, put it all together with the correct settings and there has been no change in power.

While stationary, the bike revs fine but when moving, it feels as though it isnt getting enough fuel but its got 3/4 of a tank. Thought it may be the fuel filter, i just dont want to have to drain all the fuel to check.

Any advice is welcome, Thanks!

Laurie.

first thing to check is the vac hose, check its not kinked split or full of holes, and that it has a tight fit on the spigots any of the above will cause fuel flow probs best bet would be to replace it just to rule it out (vac hose is the thin pipe coming from the tap to the right rear cylinder)

Thanks for your reply, turns out the vacuum hose had a split where it connects to the cylinder, should have really checked it before! will replace tomorrow, is there a possibility of anything else causing the problem just in case?

replaced vacuum hose, no change. definitely feels as though it isnt getting enough fuel, going to buy a set of spark plugs asap as they are worn and getting old.

ok you need to test the diaphram in the fuel tap , with the tank on the work bench turn the tap to the ON and RES positions , no fuel should flow from any of these positions, connect the vac pipe to the correct spigot on the tap , turn the tap to ON and suck on the vac pipe , fuel should now flow and also test the RES position too , if this test works then you can rule out the tap and vac pipe and move on to the next , as you said if the plugs are beyond there best a new set wont hurt anyway,
id then start looking at electrical issues if you have already done a carb strip and clean, i would go over the carbs again just to check things like the choke is closing properly etc
http://www.400greybike.com/docs.htm

i know for sure that when the tank is off and the tap is in either res or on, it doesnt leak fuel, but i havnt tried using the vacuum hose to double check. The choke is closing properly, although when i start the bike with the choke on, it idles all over the place, didnt do this before i had this problem.

To be honest, after riding it today i noticed it is using a hell of a lot of fuel, might be a spark issue where it is pushing the fuel into the engine, but not igniting it enough, thus flooding the engine.. does that make sense?

Also, my indicators are flashing VERY slow. i mean, on for a good second for two, and then off for the same, and repeat. Ive had that happen to me before, and the battery died on me soon after, so im going to charge the battery tonight to see if that makes any difference. Need to invest in a multimeter as well.

Thanks for that link by the way, had a read into it and its quite useful!

Im also getting a couple of mis-fires, any ideas? Also running rather hot, as far as i know the carbs are clean, but i havnt got the tools necessary to go through it all properly, i.e. float heights, fuel/air mixture etc

Check the battery is strong enough. Loads of posts by Neosophist about it..have a search

Hi CMSMJ1. When you say strong enough, do you mean is it giving out enough voltage? i had a read of the battery bike charging troubleshooting, would be really useful but i havnt got a multimeter at the moment, am hoping to have hold of one by tomorrow evening

Indeed - when the charging system is not tip top then you can get poor performance. The bike will run, will be ok but as the battery becomes weaker in the ride then the performance drops.

Well worth getting a 10 quid multimeter and following some of the fault finding. you may find that the battery is not as strong as it could be, the rectifier is also under more load and this is causing the problems.