Good Carbs help, after 45 years the factory units had seen there best i could never get my T140 right , new set and a tune ,it has never run better. Great Vid.
Hey Chris, lovely to meet you on the flight to Sicily, enjoyed chatting cars and bikes, hope you had a great holiday, we got back 4:30am this morning, had a wonderful time
Royd, many thanks for the message. Great to meet you too. 👍 We had a great week in Sicily - if rather hot!! (And we had to hire another rental car as when we arrived the desk of our rental company was shut!! 😯 Still trying to get our money back! 😒) Will definitely go back at some point. Very glad to hear that you had a good time too. 👍👍👍 Keep in touch, Chris
Great video ! Nearly bought a Trident years ago but settled on a Bonnie instead! It has given a good run, but was left for a couple of years with fuel taps left on ! Full strip and clean needed and I am about to re set these screws! Factory Manual says 2.5 turns out ? But this is far too weak! Amal themselves say 1.5 turns way back in early sixties! You confirmed it for me so thats how I will start ! Glad I found your video and thank you!
New to me 68 T150 and struggling to get consistent idling at all so this is really helpful. If I fail consistently do you take on odd bits of tinkering and tuning? Just over the way in Barnsley.
Just bought a BSA royalstar I believe but its twin carbed. I can get it started, warmed up with a fast idle via throttle grip. Tried adjusting and letting off throttle grip but the RPMS die as soon as I let off the grip.
Have you tried adjusting the tickover/idle? There may be a second crew on the carbs (usually pointing upwards) depending on the model, or there will be adjusters on the throttle cables.
Great video, I’m hoping you can help me, I have a 1969 Bonnie T120 with new wassell carbs , and engine was completely rebuilt, here is my problem the bike kicks over on first try but will not stay running unless I hold the throttle ,once I let go it dies, it may take a few kicks to start again but only if I re tickle the carbs ,and help would be great, thank you
The first thing I would check would be the pilot screws. Are they set to 1 1/2 turns out? If so, try turning them in a bit, or leave the choke on. It sounds like something (probably the carbs) is out of tune sonwhere - working, but not working properly.
Almost certainly blocked airways in the pilot circuit. These can be very hard to clear. You can try removing the air screw and poking a strong thin wire down (like a guitar string or welding wire) and some spray carb cleaner to see if that clears it, otherwise you might need to have the carb machined by having the opposite side of the carb drilled out and fitted with a removable plug which allows the pilot circuit to be properly cleaned out. Good luck.
On most British bikes take-offs for vacuum gauges weren't usually fitted, so you can't use them (take-offs are normallyon the inlet manifolds). Some later bikes, like the Norton Commando 850 MKIII, did have them, though. Some owners do modify the inlet manifolds on their bikes with spigots to take vacuum gauges, but I've never bothered.
Gidday Chris. I have a slight miss and an occasional backfire at about 3000 RPM - ie half throttle. The bike idles perfectly. Does the mixture screw on these carbs have any impact to the mixture at mid throttle?
The mixture screw won't affect things at that speed. From experience if yours is multi carb, then it may well be that they're out of sync, either because one throttle slide is higher than the other to begin with or because the throttle cables/rods are opening the carbs unevenly. Uneven running at that speed suggests that one carb is trying to pull whilst the other(s) are still idling.
You need to figure out where the throttle grip is rotated to when you have these miss/backfires. You cannot tell for sure just by the rpm...3000 rpm can happen well below half throttle. It could be only just a little off idle position, which means the carb is operating more on the needle jet, not the main jet. Try making some temporary marks on the throttle grip, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, fully open positions... then note where you are when these issues happen. This will tell you what jet needs attention/changing. Amal website/leaflet guide has a pretty clear description & graphic of what throttle range each jet operates at. If you feel you're still in needle jet range (below 1/3 throttle), then you can try lowering the needle (to lean the mixture) or raise the needle (richens mix) on the metal needle clip. Also need to rule out other causes like ign timing/points gap, plug fouling (have you done a "Throttle Chop" test to see plug colour?), other electrical problems that may affect spark at this rpm range (poor connections, kill switch contacts affected by vibration etc).
I have now made a series of 4 detailed videos on sorting Amal carburettors. Here's a link to the first one. The carbs are on my T160 Trident but the videos are relevant to all bikes with Amal concentric carbs. ruclips.net/video/22aIS1uwDe0/видео.html
I'd 100% say Triumph. The original 1968 Triumph T150 Triple engines, although built at Small Heath, were designed at Triumph (BSA made their own version, based on the Triumph design, for the Rocket 3) and the frames were 100% Triumph (again, BSA made their own version) both versions were styled by Ogle. When it came to the T160 in 1975, BSA no longer existed and the whole bike was redesigned by Triumph (Or rather NVT) including the engine, with over 200 modifications. So the T160 is defo not a BSA - but you could argue that it was part Villiers and part Norton, together with many, many other old British marques that had failed over the years and been slowly incorporated into what would become NVT - similar to other motor companies at the time such as British Leyland. 👍
These are Amal Concentric MKII carburettors. I'm not sure what carbs would fit your bike. I suggest you ring Amal (Burlen fuel systems) as they will be able to advise you.
Mad? Almost certainly - you're a motorcyclist! 😁😉 Anyway, are you thinking of putting Amal carbs on your Suzuki, or do you want to tune the carbs that are already on there?
@@dirtyscavanger Yep, totally barking! I don't know of anyone who's done this, so it'd certainly be a first. I think that if you can find or make a manifold to fit, then why not? All I would say (whisper it quietly) is that compared to something like a Mikuni, Amals aren't great carbs. Personally I would only ever put Amals on my British bikes, because they're British, but the Mikunis fitted to my Z900 are far superior - no tickling required, easy starting, rock steady tick-over, air screw position stamped on the carb body, etc etc. Also, where you'd start in terms of tuning - sorting the jetting, throttle slide cutaway and needle position, I've no idea! But, as I say, if you fancy putting Amals on, then why not?
@@Chris.rooke150 I think the idle would be too lumpy to detect any changes being made to the carb with a cylinder or cylinders down, I will try it just to see what happens on my triumph later and see what happens.
Seriously though, if you're a biker from the UK who's over 50 you'll say A-mals as opposed to Ammels. It's how we were brought up to pronounce it. I'm fairly sure that the correct pronunciation is actually Ammels, but we don't use it as no-one corrected us at the time. It's strange as A-mals is more of an American pronunciation, like A-rabs as opposed to Arrabs. It's a bit like Karbull for Kabul rather than Karble, or Boadecia rather than Boudicca.
Good Carbs help, after 45 years the factory units had seen there best i could never get my T140 right , new set and a tune ,it has never run better. Great Vid.
Thanks mate . I just installed an Amal carburetor( from Hichcocks ) on my Royal Enfield .
Hey Chris, lovely to meet you on the flight to Sicily, enjoyed chatting cars and bikes, hope you had a great holiday, we got back 4:30am this morning, had a wonderful time
Royd, many thanks for the message. Great to meet you too. 👍 We had a great week in Sicily - if rather hot!! (And we had to hire another rental car as when we arrived the desk of our rental company was shut!! 😯 Still trying to get our money back! 😒) Will definitely go back at some point. Very glad to hear that you had a good time too. 👍👍👍 Keep in touch, Chris
Great video ! Nearly bought a Trident years ago but settled on a Bonnie instead! It has given a good run, but was left for a couple of years with fuel taps left on ! Full strip and clean needed and I am about to re set these screws! Factory Manual says 2.5 turns out ? But this is far too weak! Amal themselves say 1.5 turns way back in early sixties! You confirmed it for me so thats how I will start ! Glad I found your video and thank you!
Great stuff! Good luck!👍
Thank you so much. This was a huge help!
New to me 68 T150 and struggling to get consistent idling at all so this is really helpful. If I fail consistently do you take on odd bits of tinkering and tuning? Just over the way in Barnsley.
Hi there. I can certainly take a look if you'd like. Contact me via messenger if you can. 👍
@@Chris.rooke150 thank you, sir. I shall do just that.
Good video there, very informative. Thanks
Just bought a BSA royalstar I believe but its twin carbed. I can get it started, warmed up with a fast idle via throttle grip. Tried adjusting and letting off throttle grip but the RPMS die as soon as I let off the grip.
Have you tried adjusting the tickover/idle? There may be a second crew on the carbs (usually pointing upwards) depending on the model, or there will be adjusters on the throttle cables.
@Chris.rooke150 I found the upward idle screw. Will attempt opened that up more tonight.
Great video, I’m hoping you can help me, I have a 1969 Bonnie T120 with new wassell carbs , and engine was completely rebuilt, here is my problem the bike kicks over on first try but will not stay running unless I hold the throttle ,once I let go it dies, it may take a few kicks to start again but only if I re tickle the carbs ,and help would be great, thank you
The first thing I would check would be the pilot screws. Are they set to 1 1/2 turns out? If so, try turning them in a bit, or leave the choke on. It sounds like something (probably the carbs) is out of tune sonwhere - working, but not working properly.
What's the most likely problem when turning the air mixture screw in or out doesn't make any difference?
Almost certainly blocked airways in the pilot circuit. These can be very hard to clear. You can try removing the air screw and poking a strong thin wire down (like a guitar string or welding wire) and some spray carb cleaner to see if that clears it, otherwise you might need to have the carb machined by having the opposite side of the carb drilled out and fitted with a removable plug which allows the pilot circuit to be properly cleaned out. Good luck.
How do you connect the vacuum gauges ?
On most British bikes take-offs for vacuum gauges weren't usually fitted, so you can't use them (take-offs are normallyon the inlet manifolds). Some later bikes, like the Norton Commando 850 MKIII, did have them, though. Some owners do modify the inlet manifolds on their bikes with spigots to take vacuum gauges, but I've never bothered.
Gidday Chris. I have a slight miss and an occasional backfire at about 3000 RPM - ie half throttle. The bike idles perfectly. Does the mixture screw on these carbs have any impact to the mixture at mid throttle?
The mixture screw won't affect things at that speed. From experience if yours is multi carb, then it may well be that they're out of sync, either because one throttle slide is higher than the other to begin with or because the throttle cables/rods are opening the carbs unevenly. Uneven running at that speed suggests that one carb is trying to pull whilst the other(s) are still idling.
But there's a number of things it could be - air leak, bent jet needle, jet needles at different heights etc.
You need to figure out where the throttle grip is rotated to when you have these miss/backfires. You cannot tell for sure just by the rpm...3000 rpm can happen well below half throttle. It could be only just a little off idle position, which means the carb is operating more on the needle jet, not the main jet. Try making some temporary marks on the throttle grip, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, fully open positions... then note where you are when these issues happen. This will tell you what jet needs attention/changing. Amal website/leaflet guide has a pretty clear description & graphic of what throttle range each jet operates at.
If you feel you're still in needle jet range (below 1/3 throttle), then you can try lowering the needle (to lean the mixture) or raise the needle (richens mix) on the metal needle clip. Also need to rule out other causes like ign timing/points gap, plug fouling (have you done a "Throttle Chop" test to see plug colour?), other electrical problems that may affect spark at this rpm range (poor connections, kill switch contacts affected by vibration etc).
I have now made a series of 4 detailed videos on sorting Amal carburettors. Here's a link to the first one. The carbs are on my T160 Trident but the videos are relevant to all bikes with Amal concentric carbs.
ruclips.net/video/22aIS1uwDe0/видео.html
I have to ask seeing as you have a T160, do you really feel it is a Triumph or a BSA based on the engine?
I'd 100% say Triumph. The original 1968 Triumph T150 Triple engines, although built at Small Heath, were designed at Triumph (BSA made their own version, based on the Triumph design, for the Rocket 3) and the frames were 100% Triumph (again, BSA made their own version) both versions were styled by Ogle. When it came to the T160 in 1975, BSA no longer existed and the whole bike was redesigned by Triumph (Or rather NVT) including the engine, with over 200 modifications. So the T160 is defo not a BSA - but you could argue that it was part Villiers and part Norton, together with many, many other old British marques that had failed over the years and been slowly incorporated into what would become NVT - similar to other motor companies at the time such as British Leyland. 👍
(The only bike that was really a BSA but sold as a Triumph, was the Hurricane)
which Amal carburettor is it? would Amal 622 fit on Royal Enfield 500cc old model ?
These are Amal Concentric MKII carburettors. I'm not sure what carbs would fit your bike. I suggest you ring Amal (Burlen fuel systems) as they will be able to advise you.
Would i be crazy to try to set up a dual carb for my suzuki?
Mad? Almost certainly - you're a motorcyclist! 😁😉 Anyway, are you thinking of putting Amal carbs on your Suzuki, or do you want to tune the carbs that are already on there?
@@Chris.rooke150 I would like to put a new set of amal carbs on.
@@dirtyscavanger Yep, totally barking! I don't know of anyone who's done this, so it'd certainly be a first. I think that if you can find or make a manifold to fit, then why not? All I would say (whisper it quietly) is that compared to something like a Mikuni, Amals aren't great carbs. Personally I would only ever put Amals on my British bikes, because they're British, but the Mikunis fitted to my Z900 are far superior - no tickling required, easy starting, rock steady tick-over, air screw position stamped on the carb body, etc etc. Also, where you'd start in terms of tuning - sorting the jetting, throttle slide cutaway and needle position, I've no idea! But, as I say, if you fancy putting Amals on, then why not?
Can you really take two plug leads off and tune one carb running on one cylinder? 3:57
Not sure, which is why I never do it, but I know people who manage it on twin cylinder bikes.
@@Chris.rooke150 I think the idle would be too lumpy to detect any changes being made to the carb with a cylinder or cylinders down, I will try it just to see what happens on my triumph later and see what happens.
I agree, which is why I always tune my bikes with all cylinders running.
@@Chris.rooke150 yep, same here
it occurs to me the vowel `A i should be flat in both applications
Ay -mal ? or , AM-AL 😉
You say potato, I say potato. 😁😉
Seriously though, if you're a biker from the UK who's over 50 you'll say A-mals as opposed to Ammels. It's how we were brought up to pronounce it. I'm fairly sure that the correct pronunciation is actually Ammels, but we don't use it as no-one corrected us at the time. It's strange as A-mals is more of an American pronunciation, like A-rabs as opposed to Arrabs. It's a bit like Karbull for Kabul rather than Karble, or Boadecia rather than Boudicca.