Arlen, welcome to the group. I will let the more experienced guys to reply your questions. I'll say that's a pretty good looking $700 nighthawk! the year of your bike should be in a plate at the steering column. But judging from the picture, your bike does not looks like an 82.
Javier. On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 11:21 AM, Arlen Burroughs <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello All, > > My name is Arlen, and I just started riding June 21! I took the MSF BRC, > got my license, and purchased an '83 650 (see attachment). I got it a month > and a half ago for $700 bucks. I figured it would make a great starter bike > and so far I'm pretty satisfied as the bike does run well overall. I just > might keep her for more than I thought! > > ISSUE 1a: I noticed right off the bat that in the mornings (65 - 70 > degrees) it was a more difficult to start, almost draining battery entirely > (which took only a couple minutes). I would use full choke, and when it > finally started to fire it was always very low rpm (read close to 500). I > just installed a new Yuasa battery this morning, so that takes care of the > cranking power issue (I also bought a battery tender). It still took a bit > to get going after sitting a week. I wish to clean the carbs eventually, > but I'm a bit intimidated by the fact that there are 4. One is the most > I've done before (for an old sled). > > ISSUE 1b: When I turn on the choke, the first half of it doesn't even > raise the small lifters on the carbs, only the lifting bracket. Once the > lifting bracket makes contact with the choke lifters and the choke is all > the way on, the lifters have only raised maybe 5mm (I noticed that they are > capable of going quite a bit higher). Should I adjust the choke cable so > when applying choke it starts raising the lifters immediately? > > ISSUE 2: In addition, it leaks a small amount of gas which seems to be > dripping out of the petcock. Should I get a rebuild kit, or simply a new > petcock? > > ISSUE 3: The title says the bike is an '83, but when shopping for a > battery I noticed that the '83 positive post is on the right (when looking > at battery), whereas the '82 positive post is on the left. I got the '82 > model battery and it works with the bikes setup. How can I tell for sure > what year my bike is? I've tried looking online but didn't have any luck. > > I really like this group a lot and have done a fair amount of browsing old > topics! > > Thanks in advance for the help, > > -Arlen > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
