A week that ended in deep shame as I finally got caught out and had to ride the Honda to a Laverda event 😦
Family crisis intervened and I ran out of time to get the Atlas running properly. My own fault of course because these days I am mainly a ‘man of leisure’ but old habits seem to die hard and so as is my way I didn’t leave enough time to sort things out.
The Atlas running had been getting poorer over the week. It would not run on two cylinders at low revs and was now starting to misfire on the transition from closed to open throttle. It was also running poorly and irregularly on the open throttle. Time to rig up the aux’ fuel tank and do some carb’ balancing…
The problem is with the left hand cylinder so I went through various problem solving routines. I changed the pilot and main jet – the pilots were new long jets as originally fitted so I went back to the non-standard short jets which had seemed to serve me so well. Of course reflecting on this it was quite irrational because the right hand side was okay so was it going to be the jets? Still I pressed on with time counting down and finally decided on a carb’ change so robbed the unit off Atlas #3. If anything this made matters worse – it’s my optimistic and naive outlook that thinks the problem will be solved by putting on a carb’ that’s been sat for maybe 2 years…It didn’t work. I played around with the pilot setting and noticed that whatever I did to the left hand carb’ made little difference so I turned my attention to the electrics.
I played about substituting coils and checking for spark – the spark on the left side was ‘iffy’ but in the end I just had to jump ship and prep’ the Honda. I was going to ride a Honda – what could possibly go wrong…
On a more positive note I found electrical connectors to fit the Atlas wiring harness. The digital speedo I fitted works fine but I still need to plumb in the wiring to make the idiot lights work. I plan to make up a new sub-harness so needed a nine pin connector and found Kojaycat supply the parts or rather supply parts for old Suzuki’s which is what Laverda used. At the same time I also picked up some nice M6 brass connectors to wire in my satnav to the battery – shame I can’t find the satnav wire…
Nick 🙂
Bent screwdrivers, big hammers and old Laverdas 