Fresh Gaskets all around, And now no idle!

[Anonymous]

78 GS750E Well, I replaced the base, head, cam cover, and oil pan gaskets, as well as piston rings, and now she's not idling. I still need to re-sync the carbs, but I didn't think it would cause this much trouble. Timing got a little goofed as I have a Martek 440 electronic igniction and needed to remove it to set valve timing. It is not advanced or retarded, but set straight on. Should it be advanced? Also, when I took out the cams I noticed only 19 pins between timing mark on exhaust and intake (Clymers says 20) I set to 20 and everyonce in a while she really ticks, then it goes away and comes back, seems to be affecting running, sounds almost like a valve slapping the piston. I really want her back, so any help would be apreciated. Thank you, Ben Reilly GS750EC

[Anonymous]

If it were my bike I would take all of the cam and ignition timing equipment off and do the job over again, ensuring I got everything perfect. It seems like a lot of time wasted, but in the long run I find it to be a time saver. Make sure you set your ignition timing where the factory manual says it needs to be. Any of those problems can cause your bike to not idle right. If you have 2 or more settings off it could cause the bike to not start at all, let alone idle. Be careful with that slapping sound. Since it's intermittent I -doubt- it's valves interfering with pistons. Anyone else have a different opinion?

Tim

[Anonymous]

Tim is right, you better do it al over again, if it were only to prevent any damage.
Bad carb sync can prevent your engine from idling, so do clogged carbs. I had the same problem.... I had to clean them twice.

Jojo

[Jay B]

Carbs

Unless the carbs were taken apart and the adjustments changed that should not affect anything. If it was running good before all the gaskets were replaced and nothing was done to the carbs except to take them off and put them back on then that is not the problem. Sounds more like the ignition to me. Try setting it back to 19 and see what happens.

[SqDancerLynn1]

I would definately recheck the cam timing. You also may have to clean carbs. If there was any junk in the bowls it could have pluged the jets when they were removed, maybe the carbs got turned upside down?? getting all the junk up in the carbs

[Jay B]

My Bad

Good catch. I missed that one.

[Anonymous]

I'm at work right now, so maybe i can sneek it in and have a peek while the boss is away.