Help with stalling problem

[Troll]

Sounds like it's running VERY rich. What color is the end of the pipe? Black and sooty, or grey? Somebody may have put a jet kit in and set it up rich before you bought it.

[Tfrank59]

Seems like seafoam helped. I made it past 60 miles again. Unfortunately it looks like right around 100 miles I have to put it on reserve. Not sure how I feel about 35ish miles/ gal my 250 spoils me with 50-55 mpg lol. On a good note I finally pulled off switching to reserve while riding, yay! Also the switch to reserve was fairly accurate seeing as I pumped 3 gal back into the tank right after switching to reserve.

Well if it's any consolation I'm only getting about 37 miles per gallon on mine. That's a combination of city and secondary roads--rarely on the freeway with it.  I haven't done the sprocket change on mine but I don't intend to because I like the stock gearing which I feel is already a bit tall for the kind of riding I do.

[Aimee.L]

Yes i have seen that a lot on here. It's definitely on my to do list but I have a few other things to do first. I'm sure there will be a handful of things to slowly work on doing like that as I go along.

[OR Seedman]

if you haven't done it already, make the sprocket change from 17/40 to 18/38.  I gained 7 mpg on my overall riding (some highway and some city)  I regularly get 46-49 mpg now vs. max of 39 with the old setup...re-jetting the carb helped a lot, too.

[Aimee.L]

Seems like seafoam helped. I made it past 60 miles again. Unfortunately it looks like right around 100 miles I have to put it on reserve. Not sure how I feel about 35ish miles/ gal my 250 spoils me with 50-55 mpg lol. On a good note I finally pulled off switching to reserve while riding, yay! Also the switch to reserve was fairly accurate seeing as I pumped 3 gal back into the tank right after switching to reserve.

[Aimee.L]

Both times I was on level road but switching to reserve did help both times.

[Pete]

I live in an area that has a couple of long steep hills. I've found that going downhill on one of these is usually where I have to go onto reserve. I suspect that this is due to the shape of the tank.
Did you stall when riding downhill by any chance? Did you switch over to reserve before you restarted?

[Aimee.L]

Just updating. I haven't had a chance to run the bike under a half a tank yet but so far no problems running on the first 50 miles. Hopefully I can get out soon to check beyond 50 miles but so far so good.

[Aimee.L]

 Lol and it's the first one I've been brave enough to try to work on.

[CDNRatMan]

   Remember you ride a metric bike now and everything is in metric stuff.....lol...

[Aimee.L]

Awesome thanks! I've been slowly working on reading everything in the forum I think I've actually seen your post but skimmed too quick to see all the tips. So far so good with the seafoam I'll just have to keep riding to see if it acts up again.

[CDNRatMan]

   Rear cover removal, never scratched the cover yet. So if you are standing behind your bike, or in the seat area, on the left side of the machine, seat is off, tank is off, there are a few items need to be loosened off, and I have posted this info here on the forum.
http://www.vulcandrifterriders.com/forum/index.php?action=articles;cat=17
top 2 articles.
You always remove the cover to the ride side of the bike and it is a matter of very gently sliding it out and taking your time. Picture of both my valve covers and no marks on them......
mm vs in........lol.....really glad you figured that one out.......so have a fun ride and let us know how things go and we can move on to the next issue.....

[Aimee.L]

Bahahaha my poor rear cover definitely disagrees with you. I will keep updated as well as take a peek at those threads. Even if not the problem I like reading through them to get a good understanding for things to watch for as well as figuring out what are quirks and what are actual problems.

[Tfrank59]

Well you should do that video, cuz now you're an expert and I've never even cracked my covers haha. As far as your stalling out problem keep us posted. Regarding the petcock there is a thread about that because it is a vacuum petcock and so it's got some funny quirks but there's a discussion on the Forum about how to work on it should you need to.

[Aimee.L]

So redid my valves and yup they went right back to where they were! Sure wish someone would do a video on getting the rear cover out without scratching it  oh well I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. Also cleaned and oiled my filter.

Tonight I'm going to fill her up and add the seafoam then going for a descent ride tomorrow and we'll see if the seafoam did the trick.

Again I really appreciate everyone's help and patience through my lurking curve dopey moments 

[Aimee.L]

Ok thanks. That was the plan, redo valve clearance and then revisit the stalling issue. Every cent appreciated 

[Tfrank59]

Well you took a detour with the valve clearance setting. Once you get that back where it should be return to the stalling out problem which if it's not gas tank venting then it might be your petcock because it's suspicious if it only wants to run on reserve and you have a half a tank. Just my 1.5 cents.

[Aimee.L]

My poor baby! Lol I immediately knew it didn't sound right

Otherwise then making sure hoses are tight and not kinked what else could or should I check for a venting problem?

[Troll]

Well, that will sure make a difference! I still thing you have a venting problem. Gravity feed systems are susceptible to that...

[Aimee.L]

HOLD THE PRESS I FIGURED MY VALVE ISSUE OUT!. I decided to slowly read through the instructions I have to make sure I didn't miss anything yesterday and realised I measured in freaking inches not mm! What a dummy  so hopefully Saturday I'll be fixing that. Then I'll finally get to run the seafoam and see where I'm at.

[Aimee.L]

I kept the original shims but did not write the shim and clearances down. I will next time. I did set them to have resistance on the feeler but I don't think I would call it drag so maybe I did read them looser then they actually were. I was just concerned that say for example on intake if i had noticeable drag at 0.10 and by 0.12 or 0.13 couldn't fit the feeler in there at all, that would be considered too tight?
With the fuel valve, I had thought I had a bad petcock because my original problems with stalling as well as when I started it up after doing the valve check were all when the petcock was in the on position. All 3 situations seemed to improve when I would switch to reserve and all 3 times there were no less then 1/3 of a tank usually closer  to a half tank full.

[Troll]

did you write down which valves had which clearance and which shims? Notes can be a real life saver.  As much as it sounds like a lot of work, I would go over your adjustments again. I think you set them all too loose. Exhaust vales generally run a bit looser clearance because they run hot. Loose valves not only sound bad, but the invite valve head tuliping. It's your first time doing it, so when you get more experience, you will be better at it. There should be a noticeable drag drag on the feeler gauge when you are correct. If it slides in and out easily, you are too loose. It takes practice.  Why are you blaming the fuel valve?

[Aimee.L]

That's what I was thinking. After looking through online a lot of people say the tinny sound is usually from too loose valves. Didnt drain the tank, there was about 1/3 of a tank but I think that might tie back to probably needing to replace the petcock. My biggest concern is if I get down to the lowest clearance allowed and it still does it. My only options from there are leave it or go outside of spec back to where it was. It sounded and ran perfectly with the much thicker shims in it before with the exception of the petcock that I need to replace.

[Troll]

Still sounds like they are set a little on the loose side. The noise you hear is NOT what most people think. It's not the rocker arm slapping the top of the valve stem, but rather the valve slapping the valve seat as it returns that last couple of thousandths. Possible that the change in valve clearance caused the idle speed to increase, but what concerns me more is having to run the fuel valve in a different position, unless you drained and didn't refill the tank....

[Aimee.L]

I also checked that every shim put the  clearance near center of the tolerance. I would run through the thinnest to the thickest feelers for the tolerance range and make sure that the thinnest would move pretty easily with barely any drag working through to the thickest I wouldn't be able to get in or it would be really hard.