Sooty plugs, running rich - where do I start?

[muskrat]

G'day wortluck.
Dark tan is a good colour. Sooty pipes are normal with unleaded (even premium). Oily pipe without smoke when riding is a exhaust valve guide. Either too much clearance with the valve stem or loose in the head.
Cheers

[Worty]

Thanks again Muskrat

I'll go with your suggestion and investigate when I get chance.  I know the existing valves and guides were serviceable when the engine was rebuilt so they were put back in.  There isn't any valve clatter either, so I'll monitor the situation carefully.  I did fire her up tonight to check the function of a new kill switch - again, no smoke, started easily, sounds lovely!!

Thanks for your help and advice - watch out for future posts 

[BSA_54A10]

Moder fuel ( which is not petrol ) can not be fully burned in a computer controlled fuel injected engine so we have to fit afterburners, commonly called catalytic convertes to disguise the fact they are there to burn the 10% or so of the fuel you paid for but your engine can not burn.
We on the other hand do not have catalytic converters fitted to our old motorcycles so what happens to all that garbage thet your engine can not burn ?
Well some of it will condense out of the hot exhaust gasses and deposit itself inside your muffler.

[Worty]

Thanks BSA_54A10

Very good point, and something I was not aware of.  Are you saying that the liquid/soot in my silencer is mainly down to fuel?  If so, should there be some in the r/h silencer as well??  I only really noticed the problem when I filled up with premium unleaded - is this worse?  As I've said to Muskrat, the bike runs beautifully and with dark tan plugs.  No rattles, clatters, smoke, excessive oil consumption, etc.  Incidentally, I run the bike on good quality 20/50 as recommended to me by others.  Would it cause a great problem if I ran it on 15/40 mineral (especially with the cool British climate).  It's just that I have a large quantity of this oil and would like to use it if poss.  Oil changes are generally every 1k m.

[Peter in Aus]

Mate, If it runs good and sounds good ride it and don't look back!
Peter

[Worty]

Y'know, I think you're right pal - wish I could have a bit more of that Aussie sunshine though 

[BSA_54A10]

Having bought my very first A10 at age 15 and having ridden continiously from then till now I find these threads really ammusing.
Back in the day we just swung the kickstarter pushed the bike off the stand & twisted the throttle.
And these were the bikes we rode each and every day, rain hail & sunshine.
No one ever gave a wrinkled rats rectum if there was some black poo in the pipes, just so long as the bloody thing went foreward when you let the clutch out.
And went they did 20,000 - 30,000 miles a year, quick ring & bearing job under torch light out in the street and back to work the next day.

Now days when they get used once every fat faries fourtnight suddenly  every nook & cranny is under the microscope for fear of necular meltdown.
back then if it went bang, you thumbed a lift to a mates place, borrowed his dads trailer and went off in the vein hope the bike will still be there.
You shoved what ever oil was cheapest on the forcourt in and blasted off into the night till you needed some more fuel and again what was cheapest went into the tank.
First Satuday of every month seemed to be universal motorcycle maintanance day and every third driveway had some long haired galoot setting tappes with a fag box lid, old washer, lump of tin can or even if you had enough money, a real set of feeler gauges then the poits got done with fag paper.
The chain may have got a wipe with an old towel before being pulled back then it was off to the beach, back home, over to the girls place taking care to wipe the oil off the underside before you parked on the road so you did not leave oil stains on "Daddys " driveway, a long ride, trip to the speedway or party, tippy toeing back home under the failing yellow glow.

If most of you filled the engine with elephant pee the bike will still outlive most of you,


I relly just don't get every one seems to want an A 10 but every one seems scared to ride it constantly looking for any possible reasons to pull it back apart

[Peter in Aus]

Love it!

[Worty]

Yeah, I get it BSA_54A10, but this is the first Brit bike I've restored and run so I'm still getting to grips with what's going on with it.  I'm not precious about my bikes, they're restored to be ridden, but parts can be expensive and I don't want to blow it up because of some stupid mistake on my part.  This forum has been great for pointing me in the right direction, and I appreciate everyone's input.

My first resto project was a 1959 BMW R60/1 which I rode everywhere in all weathers and even did a bit of despatch riding on it.  It never missed a beat the six years I rode it, and I never had any of the issues I have with the A10 - hence the questions.

I never chose the A10, I just came across it at an absolute bargain price £1100 including a bike ramp!!!  It was complete but needed a nut and bolt resto, the elderly owner just wanted someone to return it to its former glory and ride it rather than sell it on for a profit.  When I took it back round to him to see it finished, he was well chuffed.

I'll be back on the road blatting around as often as I can, not sitting around with the old men reminiscing on my youth watching it look pretty in the garage.

Cheers pal

[Greybeard]

I relly just don't get every one seems to want an A 10 but every one seems scared to ride it constantly looking for any possible reasons to pull it back apart

Thing is; I'm retired I cannot afford to destroy the engine on my precious machine

[duTch]

Moder fuel ( which is not petrol )......

 You've said it many times before Trevortrev, but I have to ask if it's not fuel, then what is it...?

 I've done work in both local refineries (even in, around and over the alky plants )and there's a lot pipes and unseen activity, and I always ask lots of questions- but  ....

[BSA_54A10]

Basically any petro chemical based fluid that is flammiable.

Prior to unleaded petrol was a strait distillation and then some of the long chain molecule fractions were broken up and hydrogenated then the whole lot was belnded and sent off for joe public to use.
Remember when you did wheel bearings, washing the old grease out with petrol.
half an hour and the ice cream container of petrol was gone.
Now days it is basically very light fuel oil with a splash of some aromatics which evporate at room tenperature so there is something to start the engine from cold.
Pour some out into a bowl.
One week it will all evaporate in a hour or so.
next week it will reduce in volume b 50% leaving a foul smelling slime that never evaporates.

We no longer refine fuel in NSW SA or WA afaik there are only 2 refineries still working 1 each in Qld & Victoria.
So we buy what ever we can get cheap from any where in the world and blend it into something that will give the required RON numbers.
Basically it means we burn the rubbish the rest of the world does not or can not use.
Unlike other civalised countries we do not have a specification for "petrol"
All that we have is a list of things that can not go in there, a list of the maximum amount of some things that can go in there, a maximum permissiable ash content and a RON ( Octane number)

Some times the "fuel" will be "fat" ( feels oily between your fingers like deisel ) and some time it will cut ( feels sharp & dry like acetone ).
We used a lot of benzene to wash metal samples before analysis when I was in the lab and a lot of the stuff I buy out here smells distinctly of benzine ( old boot makers shop smell ) despite benzine being banned from use without a special lisence for better than 20 years. A weel latter and it smels of tolluene, that was the base of a lot of degreasers and some paint strippers.
back in the days of real petrol you were allowed 5% each of these Maximum and 7 % total for the two. now days much of the stuff would go about 30% of each

[bsa-bill]

One week it will all evaporate in a hour or so.
next week it will reduce in volume b 50% leaving a foul smelling slime that never evaporates.

I keep  two cork tap assembles in a jar (with lid) of fuel (as folklore requests) first ones I did I found after a year or so the cork tap bits sitting in an orange jelly that was all that was left of the petrol, washed them in more fuel and stored again in the jar and  they are still there and the fuel is still there.

one more questioned answered . thanks Trevor

[BSA_54A10]

There is a misconception that the ned product of oil refining is fuel because we use it.
However in fact what we get as "fuel" is what is left over after all the more valuabe stuff is taken out.
By volume more oil goes into the manufacture of plastics than gets burned in cars and then there are the bitumens, and fertilesers.
The change over point was when unleaded was intorduced, in fact it was the reason for intorducing unleaded.
Tetra ethyl lead can be adsorbed through the skin and it cam also end up in the atmosphere from fuel spils but once burned it is locked solid and can not be unlocked unless more enregy than was used to make it get applied to it.
Most of the road side lead came from paint and synthetic rubber not from the lead in petrol accumulating over the years.

[morris]

There is a misconception that the ned product of oil refining is fuel because we use it.
However in fact what we get as "fuel" is what is left over after all the more valuabe stuff is taken out.
By volume more oil goes into the manufacture of plastics than gets burned in cars and then there are the bitumens, and fertilesers.
The change over point was when unleaded was intorduced, in fact it was the reason for intorducing unleaded.

Makes you wonder what other rubbish we got shoved down our throats in the name of "environment" or whatever...
We tend to think we're to clever nowadays to be manipulated but there's never been so much manipulation going on...