Hi All,

Got over 1000 miles on the bike since the rehab. Really enjoying riding. Got the radio working, I enjoy that more than I thought I would.

Photo from upstate New York on a beautiful day.




Thacher Park

One thing my dad and I are wondering about is this enricher. Some of you recall, we share this bike (it was his dad's), and we've both had an issue we think is related to the enricher.

We follow the manual with regards to starting with it all the way out, 2 miles, halfway, another 2 miles all the way in.

I rode to work one day, during which I started it at lunch and went less than 2 miles each way. Never got the enricher totally off. When I left work 4 hours later, I did the cold start procedure and the bike started missing going down the road. If I put the enricher all the way in, it would stall. All the way out and the misses would get worse. I ended up swapping out the plugs, the rear was fouled.

Dad had similar experience but rode it down the road until it stopped missing.

I've read some guys dispense with the enricher, just using the throttle lock to warm it up. My question is, once the missing starts, whats the best way to clear it without changing the plugs? Enricher all the way in and throttle lock? Ride at higher RPM to clean off plug?

Thanks for any input. Have spare plugs and wrench in the saddlebag now. Other than this very minor issue, the bike runs great.

 

The best way to cure that is replace your CV carb with either an S&S E or Mikuni carb.
I prefer the S&S E myself.

 

Choke to get it started then hand throttle till it idles on its own and drive easy first 8 miles till full temp.

 

If the soft plug that conceals the idle mixture jet has never been removed, you need to pop it out and adjust the mixture. The EPA really put the hex on The MoCo with the carb'd EVO's. They are set up to run very, very lean. That's the reason for the start up procedure. Until the bike reaches operating temps, it's going to be a cold blooded SOB unless you've adjust the idle mixture.

FWIW, My bike's starting procedure cold:

Full enrichener.
Crank engine to start.
Adjust enrichener to where the engine is at 1000 rpm.
Pack up, suit up.
Get on the bike and start off. When under way, push enrichener fully in.
Take it easy for a couple miles. I like to keep it below 2000 rpms.
Ride it like a rental.

My CV carb has been 'tuned', and the idle mixture has been adjusted. I'm also running an EV27 cam, Dyna 2000 ignition, Ness air cleaner, and a ThunderHeader. Bike runs great.

The S&S Super E or Mikuni are great carburetors. But on a basically stock 80" EVO, the OEM CV carb is more than adequate. And it can be tuned to run good.

Just my personal experience after owning my 93 FLHS since buying it new in April 1993. Other's will have their own opinions on the CV, and you should listen to all. Make an informed decision before dropping $400+ on a different carb setup.

 

Correlation is not causation.

You could have a lot of different issues right now. The fouled plug? Not unusual.

Enricher is a useful device. The stock CV carb is a useful device. You could have a number of dried or cracked seals that affect ride.


I would buy a new carb seal boot and pull the carb and clean it and the enricher, replace teh boot, wire brush and gap the sparkplugs and set the mix and idle on that. Then monitor the sparkplugs after about 100 miles.

Since my VOES went bad (also a rubber device which will crack) - may as well check vacuum on that. It's probably time to replace the accelerator pump diaphragm on the carb too.

 

Under the throttle you should have a throttle screw that allows you to set the throttle open and tighten it up. Start bike with enricher then set throttle so it's reving at higher rpm with the screw and turn off enricher. It will warm up much faster that way. Works great on my 91.

 

On the very short trips you mention the engine is not getting warmed up enough to run properly with the enricher off. If you make frequent short trips, you really should take the long way home often, to do at least 20 miles and get the bike hot right through. After following the advice above!

 

You have a 20+ year old bike.... Time for a rebuild of the carb and new intake seals....... Get an FSM......

 

Ah. A refresher may be called for to all those who suggested rebuilding the carb or components. I'm this guy: https://www.hdforums.com/forum/evo-c...vo-member.html

All that has been done. I have the FSM, which offers a lot of good advice. The one thing it doesn't offer is procedures that people are actually using.

So what I'm hearing from the rest who offered suggestions, is that no one follows the owners manual starting procedure exactly. This, coupled with the fact that there is a warning in the manual which states that the procedure may not work for every bike, leads me to believe that HD may not have had a great procedure to start with.

I have a 94 with a stock CV. If any of the guys with older stuff have spare time, maybe you could post a picture of what your manual says for starting procedure. It would be interesting to see if HD modified the procedure between inception and later years (or added that note). Next time I have it, I will check on the mixture screw (thanks hackd).

Thanks guys.

 

DOn't really care what the manual says about the enricher. It's only for cold starts... Period. Maybe a minute of idling then off and throttle lock if you want to idle it longer... Its a lot of fuel to be trying to go down the road with it on....