It's an RE Life

[Thumper]

I had an RE adventure on Saturday that I thought I'd share.
Mr. Murphy was alive and well and very happy to visit me on Saturday.

Saturday AM, since the chores were finished, I thought I'd take a nice little ride.
Since there have been a few posts on throttle cables breaking and since I'd just lubed the chain I thought I'd go ahead and squirt some lube up into the throttle housing and onto the cable. So I did. Going to start the bike as normal I kicked and kicked and kicked but it wouldn't start. Plus there was a bunch of slack in the throttle. Wierd. So I kicked and kicked and kicked some more. Ok, hate to admit it but something's not right. Go to workshop and get some screwdrivers with the intent to pull the throttle housing. (Actually ended up making SEVERAL trips to the workshop for tools before Mr. Murphy was through with me.)

Pulled the throttle housing and no revelations - yes there was a bunch of slack in the cable but I couldn't tell why. Also the little brass nub that the cable rests against finally gave up the ghost of adhesive and fell off. OK, easy to fix - will Super Glue it this time. So I decided to pull my air filter off so I can look in the carb throat and see what's going on. At This point I (correctly) thought it was a stuck throttle slide valve as that had happened once before. Pull the side cover to move my bungeed tool kit back so I can pull the air filter off and look in the carb. Great, I have to rebungee the toolkit as they have slipped - a minor issue but a pain in the butt. Pull off air filter - and yes the throttle slide valve is stuck full wide open. Must have been when I cranked the throttle to lube the cable...

No matter how much I fiddled with the slide valve I couldn't get it unstuck! It was really jammed. Wierd. At this point Mr. Murphy ceased chuckling and started to outright guffaw. OK pull the carb and free the slide. More tools and deep breaths and I got it off and apart and unstuck the slide valve. Buttoned it back up and put the throttle housing back together and go to start it. One kick and - same thing. Slack in the throttle cable. I already strongly suspected that the throttle slide valve bound in the carb when I fastened the carb (snugly) onto the head. Do it all over again.  

This time discover a broken seat spring near the tool kit - add that to the list of things to fix and pulled off the seat cover. Mr. Murphy was rocking back on his heels grinning and humming. Sheeesh.This time I unstuck the slide valve and buttoned it back up - but didn't torque it down so much this time. Decided to go with Loctite green (and later even added epoxy to the nuts). Now the throttle worked and the carb worked and the tool kit was bungeed on. Went ahead and fixed the seat spring too and put the seat cover back on.Now we're going on two hours and Murphy's just having a good old time.

Went through the starting procedure and voila! It all works. Wierd. No idea why the carb slide stuck to begin with. Clothes are soaked through with sweat and tools are all over the driveway. Guess I won't go for a ride... At this point I pretty much hated RE's. I also hated Mr. Murphy.

Ever had a day like that?

[ace.cafe]

The bit about the throttle slide sticking when the mounting flange bolts are over-tightened also happens with Amal carbs.
The over-torque on the flange distorts the carb body, and the slide sticks.

[Thumper]

The bit about the throttle slide sticking when the mounting flange bolts are over-tightened also happens with Amal carbs.
The over-torque on the flange distorts the carb body, and the slide sticks.

Makes sense - mines an Amal

[Chasfield]

The throttle slide thing happened a long while back on my old Triumph twin. I think the Amal concentric is more prone to do that if you try to reuse the float bowl gasket. It tends to compress and break up a bit around the screw holes over time, which makes the metal faces each side bow out. There won't necessarily be a leak to prompt the purchase of a new gasket.

I used to give my carb a tap with a spanner to make the slide release, and not worry about it, but years later it occurred to me that it was potentially dangerous. I didn't have a kill switch on that bike either.