khblue

Nice thought but a shop would want about 4-5 hours labour plus parts. Well over £100 and the bike just isn't worth that kind of outlay. So I'll give it a bash myself and see how I go. If it all goes pear shaped the wifell just have to buy me a nice zzr1000 to keep me happy ;-) Sorry to hear your strife, hope you find an engine.

I've come to that conclusion as well. :-(

Hmmm, I'm fairly convinced that I must have nuked some rubber seals in the carbs by sticking Redex in the tank (possibly not mixed well enough and went through a bit neat), Easy Start (when it was struggling to go) and Carb cleaner in the air intakes (just because I thought it might help). If there are any other ideas that'd be great and I wouldn't feel quite such an idiot. Ta

I spoke to these chaps: Apparently the XJ doesn't suffer from the vibration issue, more for V-twins like yours. However, I've probably nuked the rubbers in the carbs by using Redex, (which may have sunk to the bottom of the tank and gone through undiluted), Quick Start spray, and Carb cleaner through the air intake ... oops ! All part of the learning curve. Kevin

FFS 4x Emulsion tube + needle = £169.20 inc VAT I think the bike is worth about 20p more than that. Anyone do these as pattern parts ?

Hmm, this sounds familiar. I've just posted a very similar problem. I'd expect the kinked hoses and blocked air vent in tank to produce too weak mixture or just cut-out but not sooty plugs. The oval needle sounds far more convincing to me (not that I know much). Why would that only cause a problem when hot though ? Would be good to know if that works for your xtz before forking out another £50! Ta Kevin

A bit of a saga so bear with me and if you've any ideas they'd be much appreciated. Bike was running like a dog so changed plugs (which looked lovely and tan colour) for some unused ones that I'd had for a couple of years but never got used. Bike continued to run like a dog. Bought new air filter, old one looked a bit mucky. Still ran like a dog. Charged battery but charger implied not taking full charge. Replaced battery. Charger said same thing Grrr. Still ran like a dog. Looked at the sparks and particularly on outer two cylinders looked a bit orange. Measured coil primaries and one just in one just out of range so bought replacement coils and integral leads (pattern parts). While waiting for coils and time to mend sprayed carb cleaner in air inlets while running and added Redex to tank. Still ran like a dog and after about ten minutes started to sputter and stall and struggled to start again. Put new coils and leads on. Started and ran smooth as silk...for about 15 minutes, then sputtered at low revs and had to use high revs to get going or it'd stall. After taking the plugs out they are all evenly sooty and so looks like they are running too rich. My guess is that I've fixed the spark problem but produced a 'too rich mixture' problem. The thing that's most messing with my head is that ALL FOUR cylinders have the same amount of soot on the plugs, when all four were perfect tan colour before messing with the spark problem. So, questions : Why is it only a problem when it gets hot after 15 minutes running ? Is it possible that the carb cleaner and redex have effected all four carbs evenly, opened up all four needle valves equally and so produced evenly over-rich mixture on all four cylinders ? Is it sensible to adjust all four fuel/air mixture screws on all four carbs when for the past five years it's been running perfectly and all four cylinders look the same? Any help through the confusion would be much appreciated. Ta Kevin

I'm not much of a mechanic and it sounds like you know more than me already. I had a similar issue with my XJ (1991) and found that the pick-up coil was breaking down intermittently, so I guess you could try the coil again after turning the engine over for a while or if it starts at all give it a couple of minutes sputtering, and see if the coil is still good.

Hmmm, my H-reg XJ600 pre-diversion apparently has two ignition boxes. One under the seat on the left attached to a bolt on aluminium plate(box 1), and the other attached to the battery bracket (box2). A couple of times recently the bike has failed to start and produced no spark. The fix is to disconnect box 1 !! The bike fires up and runs fine. Both times I've then stopped the bike, reconnected box 1, and it runs fine. Anybody got any ideas what is going on ? Thanks