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1000 1984 XLX no power ??

R

richardtreftz

Member
Today my wife and I got the old bike out and rode to KY and back. We together weigh abou 300lbs and bike had no power. It had trouble climbing hills. Pinging when in 4th gear. Seemed to have smoke from the exhaust same time. I fueled with premium alcohol free fuel. Anyone have a clue??
 
Welcome RichardTreftz to the HDTimeline forum and your 1st post. Is this the first time you went 2-Up with your wife? Added weight (bless her heart) does add more of a load, but a 1000cc motorcycle should be able to pull you both just fine. I would say you have carbon buildup in the combustion chambers and/or obstruction in the fueling system (if everything else was okay prior to this "adventure"). Bike should not be pinging, but when you downshifted to 3rd, did the bike stop pinging and pulled fine? If so, the bike should be "decarboned" using a spray water bottle...(pull the air cleaner after the bike is warmed up a bit and pulls cleanly...spray Gumout carb cleaner first to clean loose varnish and carbon in the carb and intake passages. Next, do the decarbon procedure using the spray bottle water mist/stream into carb throat feathering the throttle to prevent engine from dying. Make sure the exhaust is pointed away from walls and stuff, cause the carbon ladened water will black mist anything in its' path. Click the Search tab near the top and type keywords like decarbon water spray ...and you should find the related threads. Good luck and post up how things went.

http://www.hdtimeline.com/archive/index.php/t-3634.html
 
Yes first time we both have ridden this bike. 3rd seemed to have more gety up go. Bike has always pinged some when taking off. I would think that it would have more power though. I was told it started too well for timing to be off. Carbon build up reduce performance that much...
 
With bike pinging (basically high compression is causing pre-ignition, that metallic pinging sound is mini-explosions of the fuel mixture lighting off before the spark actually is to fire the mixture...sapping energy from the actual power stroke. Do check your fueling system for obstruction (drain the fuel bowl at plug, the gasoline going into a clean glass. If cloudy, rusty or plastic bits, the fuel tank liner could be flaking off and plugging the inlet fuel sock/screen in the fuel petcock assembly. Is the fuel petcock vacuum operated (you will see a skinny hose up there and 4 screws covering the diaphragm shutoff valve). May want to get a service manual and check out that carb...also check the self help section to familiarize yourself with the carb setup you have.
 
Before you get to far into things I would strongly suggest that you also check for a manifold leak. If you have a leak it will cause a lean condition and it WILL show up more under load than it will while idleing.
 
Iron head Sporsters had domed pistons and would carbon up quickly as the flame front from the spark plug could not give a complete burn of all the fuel. Add in the alcohol gas to the mix, and a lot of Sporsters had no valve seals sooo you would have some smoke from the pipes. The de carbon is a good step, tho I would think about a top end job and have the valves and seats redone if they have not been done yet, JMO
 
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