synchronizing gl1000 carbs

[wolf_walker78]

I think that clack is the chain in the engine when the cylinders are out of sync, I've seen and heard a bunch of others do that online and everyone always says "sync the carbs" and that seems to fix it. I had these apart and rebuilt them few years ago, everything seemed to match and be stock. Starts and runs great all in all, the 1100 seemed like a better setup in general though. If it was a car by ear I'd say the pump shot was weak, which is what happens when you don't have one I guess.

I usually set the mixture screws to highest idle when warm after sync, seems pretty happy.

viewtopic.php?t=77783 <<<< The video in this fellow's Topic, post#1 lead to a discussion in part referring to this 1975-1977 model years Cure:
https://www.randakksblog.com/how-to-cur ... flat-spot/ <<<< we presume you are working with the 1978 GL1000.

Is the clack occuring while the bike is in neutral and the throttle is being blipped?
Is the clack occuring while the bike in gear and you are pulling away from a dead stop?

The lean fuel air/fuel mixture "backfire" I spoke of occurs in the intake tract. Are you disinclined to try the advisement of setting the pilot air/fuel mixture screws at 3 turns out from lightly seated? Humor me... just try it

79, clack is gone when the carbs are sync'd pretty tight. It's not an intake backfire, pretty sure it's the primary chain clacking when things aren't just right like Bob said.

[wolf_walker78]

I believe the 78 has a tensioner....77 did not

Did they add a tensioner? I didn't remember. Is it manual or oil or spring actuated? Haven't seen any mention of it.

[CYBORG]

It has it's own spring built in. No adjustments needed. They will retro fit into earier years.
a good thing to do if you have one apart. I mean REALLY apart.

[redglbx]

Yep, the 78-79 was the first real update to the gl and they did get smoother/quieter thanks to some updates. Unfortunately this was the start of the move away from the original “hotrod” version Honda did for the 75-77 with milder cams and smaller carbs & intakes, in some ways better other ways not so much.

Back when my bike was new a number of the guy’s I worked with went out and bought new 77’s which imho was the last and best version of the first gen wings, they were faster & smoother than my 76 thrasher. One of the guy’s that had bought a 77 was a licensed Honda mechanic and he worked on my bike a fair amount to try & get it to run better. He redid my carbs because we found that the slides & caps were packed with cosmolene to prevent corrosion during the boat ride & storage and was supposed to be part of the initial setup to clean all that out but didn’t get done.

Funny thing is that I took my bike back to the dealer multiple times due to the slides sticking and even to a supposed gl expert at another dealership about 50mi away but none of them actually cleaned or fixed them, once my buddy cleaned them my bike ran much better (kept it from being river fill) but still not anywhere as good as the other 77 & 78’s that I rode with at the time.

Which brings me to my experience with the chain rattle, my bike had a lot UNTIL I found the mismarked flywheel timing marks and started doing dynamic timing that gets the timing for the cylinder pairs much closer (at least for me) and all the primary chain slap is gone in my bike , I can’t recommend the dynamic timing enough.

On the mismarked timing marks I will add that my bike (of course) is the only gl I’ve found with that issue and I’ve looked at a bunch for that, so unless your bike is a thrashing machine that you just can’t smooth out I wouldn’t worry about that. My .02