[busmoss]

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Im getting frustrated and need some input. I put together an 80 gl1100 motor, that runs fine butsmokes excessivly. The smoke does not smell like Oil or coolant, Nor is it black. The bike does not always hesitate but occasionaly will bog down from low end. Carb has been syncronized and recently overhauled. Cyliners are fresh and have good compression. Black thin fluid comes from exhaust connection. I have been through just about everything on this bike and dont know how to isolate this problem. Valve clearance was set to .0005 on intake and .0004 on exhaust. Timing marks line up with tdc on both heads. It doesnt seem to be loosing or mixing any fluids. I thought initially that this was pre-assembly oil, but after running a few hours it hasnt cleared up. It also doent do this at first start up, it has to idle a while. My thoughts were leaning towards a rich condition, but idle mixture screws do not seem to effect this issue. Any help would be appreciated (aside from a seafoam recomendation)!

 

[busmoss]

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I just reviewed my notes and the valve clearance was .0004 for intake and .0005 for exhaust. I transposed those numbers in my first message.

 

[dhrith]

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"good compression"

Numbers?

 

[busmoss]

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Ill put a tester on it as soon as I can borrow one again. I am assuming that an unbalanced compression would lead to oil consumption? The donor motor on this bike had about 20k but was disassembled to check for corrosion and freshen up. Rings were in tolarance as well as cylinder wall to piston clearance. I put the pistons back in the same position they left, the case was then honed and re-assembled. I just checkeed the flamability of the mystery fluid and it does not burn easily. So fuel is probably not the issue.

 

[busmoss]

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Oh yeah, The engine occationally "hickups" at low idle. Could that have anything to do with it?

 

[Hatchetman]

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i think your wing is running rich even though the fluid at your exhaust is hard to burn. Jets are not the only thing that effect your fuel/air mixture. If your floats are just 2mm out of adjustment, it will run rich or lean depending on which way the floats are out. If you were burning oil, you would smell it but if your running rich, the smell is a little different. The exhaust fumes would burn your eyes more as well!

When you check your compression, have your throttle wide open, A fully charged battery & your kill switch tripped to kill spark. The coils cant tolerate an un grounded spark plug.

 

[busmoss]

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Thanks so much for the help so far, Ill know more after compression check. I just had a thought that it might be the valve seals since the salvage head I'm using has been sitting a while. The only question I have to that is the amount of oil that could be transfered from a bad valve seal. This thing is realy smoking!

 

[Hatchetman]

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if your oil level is too high, it will smoke like a 72 ford pinto! Check that it's not over full. Park it on the center stand so oil wont travel past the rings on the lower two cylinders. & take it for a good run!

 

[busmoss]

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hatchetman, I would say it smokes more like Cheech and Chong in a 72 Bubble window Chevy Van. It is unfortunatly not the kickstand side that smokes. It running well enough to take for a jaunt, but Im afraid of it catching on fire. Still shakey after my last valve disaster I guess. What would you think would be a proper break in period to determine whether I really had a problem or not?

 

[busmoss]

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Also, good advise on the floats. I set them level with the carb bodies without tension on the seat springs (i.e. carbs on the side).

 

[Hatchetman]

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carbs can be a real pain sometimes. some guys will bench test the carbs with a fuel bottle hanging a few feet above the carbs to see if the float will shut off the fuel supply. The carb floats must be set with the carbs level, not laying on their sides. they might be close but still out enough to give you a rich mixture. If you go to the search bar & type in "Carb rebuild", you will see alot of threads with some usefull reading in them. If you had a spare set of carbs laying around, you could bolt them in just to see if it runs differently.

It shouldnt take much running for the rings to seat but you might run a few tanks of fuel through the wing before it clears up.

The thin black fluid you see is the raw gas washing the black carbon off the inside of your exhaust pipes, That is my guess!

 

[LonnieLew]

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hahahahaha......... bubble van

Alright. Let's run that thing tommorow wide open on the trace. If breaking-it-in what it's callin for. Then we'll give it a double helping

 

[dan filipi]

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Possible you have a bad oil ring but question,
does it smoke out both pipes?
If it does then I doubt it's a bad oil ring, unless you have a bad oil ring on both sides.

I've revived a few 1100 engines.
The first time I put the pipes on, after squirting trans fluid into the cylinders a day or so prior to starting, the trans fluid would get blown into the exhaust pipes at start up making it smoke like a sum bitch.
It takes quite awhile, like hours running to burn it out before the smoke finally quits.
From now on I leave the pipes off for the first few minutes running.

May not be whats happening on yours but it something to consider, maybe oil got into the exhaust at some point.

 

[picasso]

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I trust you have 10w/40 in the crankcase.

 

[busmoss]

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Got the smoke out today. It did indeed just need a healthy running. Thanks to Lonnielew for going with me in case I broke down. I have determined that the engine just needed a load on it to seal everything up as well as oil in the pipes. THANK YOU ALL for your inputs.

 

[exavid]

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Glad to hear that she's clearing up for you. Keep a closeeye on your oil and coolant for the first few hundred miles just in case you might have a head gasket leak. If the smoke you had was white that's a possibility. If you had blue smoke it probably was excessive oil in the exhaust system. I've had that on a couple of 1100s I rebuilt, the first one pumped out an amazing amount of smoke until I just took it out on the road and gave it a good hard ride. After that it was as smokeless and a tin of Copenhagen.

 

[chris in va]

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Yup, just seems to be the nature of flat fours. Oil collects on the low side.