79 Intruder

[mswyka]

So we were blessed with a White Christmas and have enough on the ground to tease me into running a sled around the outside of the house every now and again.

This brings me back to our 79 Intruder.  It starts easily and by all outward appearances runs strong.  However it seems to run like the brakes are on and never builds up much speed.

Today it is in the garage and as near as I can tell, the drive line is all free and moves easily.  Based upon this I would expect it to roll/slide quite easily on the snow.  It does not.

I was about to check compression when I found my compression tester has gone missing.

I am interested as to thoughts that others may have regarding what I should be looking at.

[Vader440]

Do all bogie wheel turn freely? Maybe a worn belt, worn slides, track adjusted to tight. Lift track off the ground and run it, when you let off the throttle does the track continue to free wheel for a little or does it slow down and or stop quickly? If it does, something is tight, maybe the brake is hanging up a little. Just my two cents.

[mswyka]

The entire skid was rebuilt a year or so ago - after we first started having this problem.

Today the sled is jacked up in the garage.  Engine running, the track spins quite easily.  At idle, the track just sits there spinning.

At this point I am not sure what to think.  The drive line seems to be free.  The engine seems to run and respond appropriately.  But out side, she just does not keep up with the other sleds.

[Vader440]

I'm looking in the Kawasaki book under general trouble shooting and there's one heading called Maximum drive converter RPM too low. Possible reasons: 1. Incorrect weights (too heavy) 2. Long belt or incorrect center to center distance. I believe it's supposed to be 12" from center of drive clutch to center of driven clutch.

[mswyka]

That could be a possibility.  It has not been run much and the secondary could be sluggish.

[kawhead]

jetted too rich on top,there were some issues with that, what power jets?

[mswyka]

jetted too rich on top,there were some issues with that, what power jets?

Pilot - 25
Main - 150
Power Mag - 120
Power PTO - 130

All of our Intruders have this jet set up.  We swapped in a different set of carbs in early 2013 the year we first identified problems with this sled.

[Interceptor398]

Have you checked the muffler for a mouse nest?

[mswyka]

Have you checked the muffler for a mouse nest?

Had the muffler off yesterday fishing around with a coat hanger and did not find any foreign matter in the pipe.

[gixxer6]

Try swapping pipes with one of your other Intruders.  Maybe swap belts, then clutches, then cdi, coils...one thing at a time until you find the culprit

[kawhead]

I would drop 10 points off my power jets....I seem to recall a service bulletin on this

[mswyka]

Try swapping pipes with one of your other Intruders.  Maybe swap belts, then clutches, then cdi, coils...one thing at a time until you find the culprit

Yes, this would make sense.  And I will probably take this approach once I beat my lazy side into submission.

[mswyka]

I would drop 10 points off my power jets....I seem to recall a service bulletin on this

I see over the years that the manual jetting ranged from a low of 140 to a high of 170.

A1 - 170
A2 - 140
A3 - 145
A4 - 155

My assumption was that they started out too rich and then over compensated and finally settled out at 155.  We picked  the current set up because  that was the combination that our hottest Intruder so we tried to emulate that through the rest of the collection.  It might be interesting to try dropping a size to see if it would make a change.  If you have a copy of the tech service bulletin that would be interesting to read.

[kawhead]

bull. sm82 01  on some 81/82 intruders jetting may be too rich.....causes steady drop in max rpm....poor throttle response....low top speed     change left carb to 125  leave right at 120....change to q-0 needle jet

[BornagianKawi]

 This may help. Hope one can read it.