Karl on Cars

   The frustration level was getting pretty high with the Triumph Hurricane. My ulitmate dream bike hadn't run properly for months, even after multiple visits to the local Brit-Bike guy. The carbs had been rebuilt ("There was a muddy, clay-like gunk in them," he told me), and the fuel tank cleaned, but it still stumbled, backfired and generally ran like sh-...it ran poorly. I finally decided to try the unthinkable -- I'd work on it myself. I have a fair level of confidence when it comes to tearing into old Mopars, but Brit Bikes scare me. They're hard to make run right even when you know what you're doing -- especially the triples. But at this point the risk seemed small. What's the worst that could happen -- I make it run bad?

Thankfully, the problem became apparent before I even started it up. Turning the fuel petcock on resulted in gas dumping out of the left-most carb. I started tapping it with a screwdriver thinking I could "un-stick" whatever valve/needle-thingy was stuck, but the fuel just kept dumping. Then I called the local mechanic and he told me how to pull the float bowl (it was easier than I thought). Pull the bowl and, what do you know, the "float" is full of gas. Even with my limited knowledge of old Triumphs I’m pretty sure that a carburetor float is supposed to, um…FLOAT! It was likely slowly filling with fuel over the last few months, but it didn't reach critical mass until this past weekend.