J
JHawkins
Guest
Well, I finally got some time (rainy day, ... didn't feel like suiting up) and got around to setting my points on the old 79. I found a little bit of buildup between the points, so I took a piece of emery paper and put it between and cleaned them up real good. Then set it to the dead center of the range in the shop manual.
Now, I was not expecting to see much difference, they were not WAY out, but WOW! Idle came up about 150-200 rpm, she will run with much less choke when starting, and in fact I can take the choke off almost immediately and keep it running with the throttle (before the choke needed to be on for about 1-1.5 minutes). The idle smoothed out, it's much smoother under load, it is amazing!
After having that much luck with the points I took on the front brake light switch which was not working. Found that what looked like a place for a spring had a little pile of rust sitting on the contact, everything was corroded and looked like crap. I cleaned up the metal contacts, stole and snipped up a spring out of a pen (perfect fit) and presto, my brake light works perfect. Unfortunately in the process I ended up having to invert the brake cylinder to get everything together so I had to bleed the brakes, no problems there aside from wishing for longer and several more arms!
And the result of that was impressive as well, not only do I have a brake light, but I no longer have a nasty screach in the brakes every time I use them!
After all this luck I decide that I would replace a couple of bulbs in the instrument cluster, which went perfectly, and now I can see the speedo at night and I have a neutral light!
Oh, and I lubed up the kickstand which seems to need constant attention or it gets sticky. Anybody ever found a good way to keep the stupid things moving freely?
I know they are just little things, but it sure does feel great when everything seems to go right and you actually get things accomplished!
I felt so good about it that tonight I went out between rain showers and gave it a really good wash that it has been desperately needing. I must admit that when the weather is good the cleaning takes a back seat to the riding.
Have a good one!
Jeff
Now, I was not expecting to see much difference, they were not WAY out, but WOW! Idle came up about 150-200 rpm, she will run with much less choke when starting, and in fact I can take the choke off almost immediately and keep it running with the throttle (before the choke needed to be on for about 1-1.5 minutes). The idle smoothed out, it's much smoother under load, it is amazing!
After having that much luck with the points I took on the front brake light switch which was not working. Found that what looked like a place for a spring had a little pile of rust sitting on the contact, everything was corroded and looked like crap. I cleaned up the metal contacts, stole and snipped up a spring out of a pen (perfect fit) and presto, my brake light works perfect. Unfortunately in the process I ended up having to invert the brake cylinder to get everything together so I had to bleed the brakes, no problems there aside from wishing for longer and several more arms!
And the result of that was impressive as well, not only do I have a brake light, but I no longer have a nasty screach in the brakes every time I use them!
After all this luck I decide that I would replace a couple of bulbs in the instrument cluster, which went perfectly, and now I can see the speedo at night and I have a neutral light!
Oh, and I lubed up the kickstand which seems to need constant attention or it gets sticky. Anybody ever found a good way to keep the stupid things moving freely?
I know they are just little things, but it sure does feel great when everything seems to go right and you actually get things accomplished!
I felt so good about it that tonight I went out between rain showers and gave it a really good wash that it has been desperately needing. I must admit that when the weather is good the cleaning takes a back seat to the riding.
Have a good one!
Jeff
