Ah, the first day of spring here in the Front Range of the Rockies. Temperatures in the mid-40s and overcast. Still, it's supposed to get into the 60s this afternoon so no complaints from me!
Brigitta, my 1987 R80, hopefully as a mark of homage to the motorcycling gods, decided to offer up a libation to them. This was in the form of gasoline leaking out of my right side carburetor bowl as I was sitting on her, right after I'd cranked her up for the ride into work.
As soon as I backed off the choke control, I heard an unusual dull metallic clattering noise. It was like something was loose and vibrating. The motorcycle vibrates a lot before she settles into a nice idle once barely warmed up. I was looking around the motorcycle and finally noticed the spreading pool of gasoline by my right foot. Whoops!
I shut Brigitta off, got off the motorcycle and removed the float bowl which was overfull. Salvaged the fuel in the bowl and poured it back into the tank. I checked, with the bowl off, the action of the floats and they seemed fine. No debris in the bowl, so I put it all back together and fired her up again. No leaks.
I am thinking I might have accidentally kicked the bowl when dismounting the motorcycle yesterday after coming home from work. So that, when I fired her up the first time this morning, it vibrated the bowl loose enough to spill fuel. Perhaps the choke cable on the right side was binding, I'll look at that as well.
If not, then I guess I'll be working on the right-side carburetor this weekend. I still rode Brigitta in to work since the weather would turn sunny and warm by the ride home. No further leaks. So maybe it's all good.
1 comment:
It just goes to show you that one should never, ever, kick their motorcycle!
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