So i was roaming around craigslist in the seattle area when i noticed a guy was selling a 98 valkyrie for 1800, i know what these bikes are worth and could use a project. I just recently got married and sold my sport bike. I wasnt really in the market for a cruiser, i just happen to see this beast and picked it up. It was complete except for the exhaust pipes. Hasnt run since 2003 according to the previous owner. He took it apart to re chrome everything because he lived near the ocean and never ever washed the bike. parts of the chrome were flaking off here and there, overall it wasnt bad. So i took it home and opened up the gas tank and the tank has about 1mm of rust EVERYWHERE.
I used good ole electrolysis to get all that rust out and ordered some Bill Hirsch (sp?) tank sealer and cleaner, as it is not affected by ethanol...wow that stuff is amazing! their tank prep was awesome too, and cheap!
anyways, i got the tank sealed, and the old petcock was messed up 2 ways from sunday. Went to pingel after some research and bought me one.
after that i decided i wanted to start it and see it the monster 6 would fire up after 8 years of sitting. i got a new battery and hooked up all the buttons and switches required for the sensors to let the engine turn over. all the cables were stuck so i lubed those up too til they worked good as new. turned the engine over and it fired up within 3 seconds (good ole honda engineering!). ran for a few seconds and shut down. at this point i am more excited than a man on his honeymoon.
i lengthened the fuel hose and put the tank on. the previous owner said he drained the bowls as best as he could so i decided to try without cleaning the carbs (yeah it was a LONG shot). realized only 3 of the cylinders were firing and decided it was time to take off the carbs. The carb setup looks mighty intimidating if you ask me so the first thing i did was call a shop and ask how much they charge. the guy was nice and said they do valks all the time. said he would do it and a complete carb rebuild for 600 bucks.
i personally would like to keep the 600 bucks in my pocket and decided to go for it myself. after taking 100 pictures i realized that the carbs only hook up in a few places and it actually wasnt that bad...the float drain tubes go on the bottom of the carbs and from there its pretty easy if you ask me...took me less than a day to take them off and put them all back on after cleaning.
checked all my hose connections and put on the tank and turned her over on choke. Ran like crap for a while and wouldnt rev past 3k for a minute or two. i let her idle and it started getting better and better. I decided to get some premium fuel and mix it with carb cleaner to clean the carbs a bit better. went to the gas station and got the fuel and came back. at this point the whole bike is almost put together, i was going to take it for a ride in about 10 minutes!
put in the new gas, turned on the fuel, and heard a SNAP...
took off the starter, all the while PRAYING the starter broke and nothing inside....no such luck for me apparently because the starter idle gear stripped 2 teeth from hydrolock...when i left to the gas station i forgot to turn off the fuel. found out cylinder 5 flooded, most likely from a stuck float and now the engine is almost out of the valk...few more days and ill have her running...AGAIN!!!
cant wait to be on it and riding...it sounds soooo good and inviting when it ran for those few minutes!
atleast i know it runs now! are there any issues i can run into replacing the idler gear?
