gas guzzling machine?

[Cholla]

also, spring for a new petcock. It will be time and money saved in the long run.

[Jim __]

While you're doing the carbs, do a valve adjustment and compression test.

[Tzigane]

spring and petcock rebuild kit are underway!

Today I took the carbs apart, cleaned them and installed new float needles. I found some dirt in the carbs, so it wasn't for nought. Only thing I can do now is drive 300km to see if the fuel consumption has improved!





I also did the CDI-rewire-power-mod.

Haven't checked the compression, the valves have been adjusted only 1000km ago.

[Daytona_Mike]

 

[RFH87_Connie]

Did you check and/or reset the bowl fuel height since you had them so conveniently removed?  Please tell me if you didn't that you didn't mix parts up - otherwise, it will most-likely get worse now.

[Tzigane]

Yup. Everything should be fine. I got help from a well-experienced mechanic at the workshop.

[Steve in Sunny Fla]

  you have the brass needle jet in your carburetor - clearly shown in the photo. That was discontinued in the US by 1985 due to the high wear and inability to properly meter measured fuel. That alone will cost you fuel economy is a big way. Remove them and look through with a light, you'll notice the hole is oblong or egg shaped as opposed to properly round. My advise would be to replace them, and also the slide needles if they are showing measurable wear. HTH, steve

[Two Skies]

BTW, I'm sure Steve will be more than happy to ship his needle kit to you if you'd like to buy it from him.  Much lighter than a full carb, so I'm sure the shipping costs would be worth it to you in the long run.

Steve has put a lot of research into his needle designs, utilizing a few of the group here as willing (and happy) guinea pigs over the years, and the reason so many of us are raving about him right now is because his products quite simply improve the performance of the bike, from both a power and an economy standpoint.  He's been working on Connies for well over a decade now (2-3 decades?) and he has a particular love for this bike.

I still remember the dyna charts 'here's the performance with this tweak, here's the performance with this other tweak, note the flat spot on the dyna chart at 'x' RPM range, and note how this change reduces that'.  Yes, Steve takes this stuff THAT seriously!

I've never seen an unhappy Steve customer on this forum, or on the previous version of this forum.  He makes great products, pure and simple.  The one time I remember reading about some issue (I think it was shipping related -something was damaged in transit or something), Steve fixed it in short order and again, happy customer!

In the Connie's case, the 'factory' version of the Connie is OK (really more than OK, she's a really fun bike), but it can be improved upon fairly easily for those that are mechanically inclined.  For those who are gearheads that like to do performance and efficiency tweaks, it's a good bike for that!  Plus it's no slouch to begin with, which is why I'm still a proud owner of mine!

Anyways, good to see you've got a handle on the problem, and let us know how you make out!  Connies are great bikes and I'm sure you can't wait to get back on the road once you've put the proper TLC into your carb rebuild.

[SteveJ.]

I'm one of the few guinea pigs, and yes, I'm a happy camper.

[Daytona_Mike]

Tzigane  Any updates for us?   

[Tzigane]

Due to circumstances I've only been able to ride 80km or so, so I can't tell much yet. Bike runs fine though.

I'll definitely get back once I have more info. 

[MizzouMike]

Just for reference, here are my stats:

over 18k miles (30,000 km) tracked
38.2 MPG (16:1 km/l)

I often wondered why a lot of folks were getting better mileage.  I attribute this to carrying too much weight, both me and my gear
I am 6'3" (1.9m) and 225 lbs (58 kilos).  I keep the bags on all the time, and will bring stuff that I rarely use just because

And I am also one of those weirdos here in the U.S. that wishes we had gone metric in the 70s when we started. 

[Tzigane]

Thanks! 1:16 seems like a good mileage though. I'm hoping to get something like 1:18. That'll give me a range of 385 instead of only 300km.
I don't drive fast or hard and I'm only 60kg. (132 lbs, which also means this is the first bike I can't get up on the centre-stand on my own.  I've owned heavy bikes before and had no trouble at all, but this one somehow requires more weight than I can provide. )

I have  a 250km ride to go tomorrow to photograph a wedding, so I can finally check the fuel consumption on the bike.

(And yes, not measuring in metrics sounds completely silly to me. Here, I'm terribly sorry to say, we often even make fun of it: "Do we need real measurements or American measurements?" - "American", which then results in using arbitrary and random amounts and lengths in whatever we're doing. I do get frustrated when trying to cook/bake American recipes using ambiguous and ridiculous measurements like "cups" and "spoons" though. )

(PS: Shouldn't 225 lbs be 102kg then? )

[Steve in Sunny Fla]

at least we don't weigh ourselves with "stones"    steve

[tweeter55]

I'm only 60kg. (132 lbs, which also means this is the first bike I can't get up on the centre-stand on my own.  I've owned heavy bikes before and had no trouble at all, but this one somehow requires more weight than I can provide.

The search feature can be your friend, Tzigane. Several different comments on help for the center stand issue. Sometimes a different technique  will help.

[Nosmo]

To take this topic sideways for a bit:

I'm 6'1", 195 pounds (that's .0018542 kilometers, and 0.0884505122 metric tonnes) and I had center stand troubles until I learned to develop the "muscle memory" to do it.  I started with the bike stripped down, (it was apart for maintenance anyway), no fuel tank, luggage, seat, etc.  I practiced until I got her up on the stand a dozen times or so, then gradually added stuff back until I could do it fully assembled.

[Deziner]

Not for nothin' but wasn't it the country with the funny measuring system that put men on the moon and brought them safely back? 

[Nosmo]

Not for nothin' but wasn't it the country with the funny measuring system that put men on the moon and brought them safely back? 

Well, yeah, but the same country (us, as in U.S.) lost a Mars probe because we got confused between the English system (only used in America) and metric (used in England and just about everywhere else). 

Details here:

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

[Deziner]

Proves my point.  If we would have stuck with Americanese values instead of Metricese values it would have been easy peasy.   

[Tzigane]

Hahaha. 

And thanks, I'll do some searching. I already came across some videos, but it didn't help so far.