Bill O!,Reed Valve Question

[2xpl's]

What happens when a reed valve goes to hell? Just installed Bill O's Jet kit's and if anyone is pondering buying one, THEY'RE AWESOME!!!! my one machine has never ran better, however my other machine will start out of the water but is a blubbering POS in the water, we were checking it out and trying to figure out what was going on with it, and it was like this b4 we installed the Jet Kit, but gas is coming out of the forward carb, like idiots we didn't check the reed valves b4 putting the carbs back on and was wondering what happens when you have a bad reed valve? Is this what usually happens, the cylinder is NOT getting any fuel, or so it appears on the plug. Supposedly there were GForce reeds in this machine, I bought it used so I don't know for sure. BTW Bill, the one machine runs incredibly good after installing the K&N's and your jet kit, thanks for all your help....just gotta find out whats wrong with this other one now, and it is acting like it's not getting any gas, and from the looks of things it's not....

[Bill O'Neal]

You should definately check the reeds. But, I'm not ready to blame this on the reeds.

When reeds break, gas will blow back out of the carb(s). The motor will be hard if not impossible to start. It may start and run on one clyinder though. It will run very badly. It may even cough back through the carb. Without flame arresstors, it may catch on fire, so be careful.

It is possible that you screwed something up inside the carbs when you installed the kit, and the carb is not delivering fuel to that clyinder? It happens.

[ June 30, 2003, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: Bill O'Neal ]

[2xpl's]

thats exactly what is happening bill and it was running like this B4 we put the carb kit in

[Colin GSXL]

A couple of things to try - from experience with a sick 951.

First a compression test.

If OK, take off flame arrestors and, with ski idleing, put palm of your hand over each carb one at a time. If both reeds are OK you should feel strong vacuum on your hand. If one seems to blow back I would say reed is shot. If one feels very week on vacuum I would suspect a blown crank seal. Keep the fire extinguisher handy! I'm guessing on the result for a failed reed but the crank seal I can confirm from my past woes.

Also I would say it's much easier to fix a faulty ski before modifying it IMO.

Colin