Wet Weather Woe’s
I need help solving a puzzle. I live in Oregon, our reputation for wet weather is often oversold, but today the legendary storm clouds are letting us have it and I'm having some issues with my motor bogging down.
The symptom is a lack of throttle / acceleration when traveling in 3rd or 4th gear at speeds above 40mph (below that speed my motor runs just fine). When this symptom hits the motor feels like it is bogging down. The more I crank the throttle up, the more the motor wants to die. If I let off the throttle, I can maintain a speed, but can not accelerate. Sometimes the motor will seem to die completely, although the motor continues to run, it’ll sputter and stumble bad, unable to maintain any speed regardless of what I do with the throttle. And then, like magic, it will recover. Sometimes kicking it down a gear and jacking the rpm’s way up, the motor will behave like a good motor, only to bog down again once I begin to get up to speed. There have been a few times when the motor has stalled. Usually I can kick it back to life with one kick.
Its hard to say just what is going on. I suspected that the foam air cleaner was getting saturated with water. So I pulled the side panels and this is what I saw.
Every thing in the engine bay was covered in water, however the rubber bellow / snorkel was sealed to the carb very good.
Inside the rubber bellow / snorkel I saw evidence of mayonnaise (two stroke oil and water mixed) and there was a small puddle of water at the base of the snorkel.
And the carb had its fair share of mayo too.
You can see small droplets of water, that look black against the white oily mayo. But there is plenty of water droplets getting in my carb.
My guess is that my carb is gulping water at times or sucking in water droplets or the mayo is building up and getting sucked in ... any of which are causing my motor to bog down???
Any suggestions or experience in water proofing a carb? Any helpful ideas to share. Any one know Aqua Man, Maybe he can help.
Please let me know. Thank you. Rog.
UPDATE: Here is my fix. So far it has worked well (although the rain has not been quite as biblical).
After playing with some cardboard templates, I came up with this idea. This is made of sheet aluminum. It is a barrier to the majority of the road spray coming off the rear tire.
I spotted this spot in the frame and realized I could make a mounting stud for my barrier. This is removable and very stable.
With the air bellow attached to the carb. There is enough space for the barrier and the air filter.
I ran this on the Oregon 100 rally and had no issues. It only rained in the evening. The rest of the ride was dry and cool. This is also easy to remove. Two nuts and its off. I did have to hammer the aluminum to give some space for the fuel tap and the fuel line. I'm no body work master but nothing is touching so no fear of cutting a fuel line or wearing something out.
I'll add updates whenever I get the chance to ride in a down pour again.
Cheers, Rog