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I love tubes, but I'm afraid I just buy the amps. I haven't dived into building any, and I certainly don't know how to design a circuit. Re-capping an old amp is about my current level of expertise: IOW's, I know how to hold a soldering iron.

jagarra wrote:I would suspect either a too low of float level or too low of a needle. I like to take carbs off and hold them upside down to ensure the float is closed via gravity, I like to see a parallel line between top of float and base of carb body.
I your needle position is set too low, lower the clip to raise it to give you more fuel. Again, try one thing at a time.

That's good advice!

To check my float levels, I actually left the petcocks on and set them as parallel when the fuel would just start to flow.

I'll check the needles next, I cleaned up the slides about 6 weeks ago, so it's possible that they are down too far.

Major Softie wrote:I love tubes, but I'm afraid I just buy the amps. I haven't dived into building any, and I certainly don't know how to design a circuit. Re-capping an old amp is about my current level of expertise: IOW's, I know how to hold a soldering iron.

Yeah, I work for a company that sells tube audio kits. I haven't seen anybody who grabbed the wrong end of the soldering iron, but a few customers have sent concerned emails that the tubes are "too hot to touch" while their amp is running

audiowize wrote:

Major Softie wrote:I love tubes, but I'm afraid I just buy the amps. I haven't dived into building any, and I certainly don't know how to design a circuit. Re-capping an old amp is about my current level of expertise: IOW's, I know how to hold a soldering iron.

Yeah, I work for a company that sells tube audio kits. I haven't seen anybody who grabbed the wrong end of the soldering iron, but a few customers have sent concerned emails that the tubes are "too hot to touch" while their amp is running

Looks like audio porn to me!
I was always a McIntosh fan, just because they were so exclusive and incredibly HOT! (esp when turned on!)
I always thought they would have made the perfect match to my Altec VOTs.

I'm still SS on my home audio stuff.

This is my kind of tube amp - in fact, it looks identical to mine.

Speaking of hot tubes. When I was in the Army in school learning how to repair transmitters we had units that had the vacuum tubes water cooled. There were water jackets that surrounded the tubes to aid heat dissipation. Wasn't that long ago about 49 years ago.
Shit! I am getting old.

So, I checked my needles, and they are both set on the 2nd notch from the bottom. Just for giggles, I put the needles on the bottom notch and clouded up the neighborhood.

One thing I do notice -

On the left carb, when I tighten up the air screw all the way tight, the idle speed increases. To me, this either means that the idle jet isn't supplying sufficient fuel, or I have some crud left somewhere in the pilot system.

I think I absolutely have to address this issue before I can focus on getting that top end power that's absent.

Alright, so I figured out that the left side throttle cable doesn't quite fit well enough that the boot can be left off while it's running. I couldn't figure out the odd carb behavior, so I gave it another go with the starting spray to test for leaks, and sure enough when I hit the area around the throttle cable entry, the engine responded immediately. The RH side does not exhibit this behavior.

Once I got that out of the way, I went for another ride, and still sluggish. I thought I'd triple check the float levels, and lo and behold, the accelerator pump on the left carb wasn't in tightly enough, and I suspect the main jet was resting against the drain plug... oops!

Anyway, here she is.



The last little thing I need to work on is the front suspension. It seems to only have 2 positions - out all the way on the center stand, and down quite a ways when the bike is on the ground. I can't get much movement out of it by trying to pump it. I guess I will start by using the dipstick method to test my oil level, otherwise I suppose a new set of springs isn't the end of the world. I guess I expected springs with 17K on them to still be pretty springy, but even the springs that should suck the center stand up are pretty much toast.

Thats a purty green motorcycle..

audiowise,

I am sure you wouldn't have gotten this far without some fans to blow on the cylinders while the bike is running in the garage. If not, Stanley seems to have made the perfect shop fan for airhead enthusiasts:

http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-655704-Pu ... tanley+fan

(buy two)