Welcome and have a smooth trip.

Welcome!

First off, thank you for maintaining, moderating, and filling this site with information. I have read a good bit from it over the years, but haven't seen information lacking till I stumbled on this particular topic which I have experience. I figured it would be a good time to repay the members expertise and experiences with some of my own. So...

I recently purchased a Chinese carb for a 96 XT that had been sitting for a number of years. The coaster enrichment cover was rotting, brittle, and ultimately broke when I removed the carb from the bike. I paid ~$37 on the gamble that the Chinese carb was a close enough copy and that I would be able to cannibalize multiple parts from it and come out ahead of buying them individually.

When I received the carb, its quality was enough that I decided to try it on the bike before attempting to rebuild the OEM carb with it. The carb body casting material seemed very similar to the OEM if a hair lighter and the casting quality and machining seemed sufficient. Fitment was fine and I did not need to swap any parts given that my bike has a single throttle cable. I did not have issues installing the fuel line so did not notice the shape change TXrider mentions, I will have to look when I get the opportunity. The bike fired immediately and ran well enough when modulating the throttle by hand till it warmed up. I then adjusted the idle level and it idled by itself. I rode it around the neighborhood and its tuning was not far off, stumbling a little and small popping when closing the throttle. After parking the bike for the night, I returned the next day to adjust the A/F screw. The factory setting is 2 turns out. I was able to adjust it on the bike. The spark plug read a little lighter than tan (lean) which seemed accurate given the bikes performance. I am able to adjust the A/F screw on the bike by removing the throttle cable and rotating the bottom of the carb so that the A/F adjustment opening faces the left side (clutch side) of the bike, though this did give me some false information the first couple times I did it as it pulled my choke out the tiniest bit and I did not notice at first so make sure your choke is reset between adjustments. The local elevation is ~300'. The bike has no airbox/snorkel or exhaust modifications, but IS using a foam air filter. My final setting was 2 1/2 turns out for best performance with stock jetting. I don't remember the stock jetting size, I guess I can check when I get a moment to do so. The OEM jets fit the Chinese carb fine and I intend to order a couple of main/pilots to play with to see if there is any improvements to be made as I suspect it is running slightly lean still (like factory setting OEM carb).

I rode for a couple of hours around the local powerlines as well 4-5 road miles where I was able to run the bike out. Performance was acceptable, the engine did not get overly hot, and there were no major issues to speak of. it has been ~80F here and the bike will cold start fine and the choke seems to be working appropriately.

I now have 2 OEM carbs and 2 Chinese carbs. I will have the second Chinese carb off the bike for a little while longer and can take measurements, check parts interchangeability, or answer other questions within reason.

Well I have received the short chinese choke and cable, the choke fits but I can't find a suitable place to mount the knob, angles are all a bit wrong. I have used the nut though and have now gone back to my old cable

Pretty countryside and a nice day. Glad you we're able to enjoy a ride and lunch. Thanks for posting.

I agree! Mike Lindell's new platform is www.frankspeech.com which might provide some relief. The site has come under immediate attack after being launched yesterday. Should be interesting to see how this develops and evolves. As for free speech on the internet, we certainly need a few more market choices. Hopefully Lindell's site moves us in that direction. Make sure to un-mute the audio. Enjoy!

I have experience of both opinions.

On all my old Brit push rod engines, the valve clearances opened up with wear. The good bit, if the tick is heard, they need adjusting. There are many moving parts wearing which beats the valves sinking into the head.

On all my modern overhead cam engines, the valve clearances have closed up with wear. I have found several to be closed up to zilch after being dealer serviced while under warranty. The valves sink into the head but few moving parts to balance the effect, hence less clearance. And no tick, too quiet is not good.

With our XT's operating with rockers I'm finding it quite balanced of wear in the mechanism to valve sinking in head, so the clearances rarely need adjustment either way. How do others find them?

Quick update. Bike is up an running. Have put 20 miles on it so far, runs much quieter and feels like it has more power. Now waiting for my registration paperwork so I can take this thing on the road. Just wanted to thank you all for helping me through this build

Found a 2000 XT225 with a 176 miles on it. Askin $3500. It's got a Clark tank on it. Although not listed in the ad I recognize it. How do you own a motorcycle for 21 years and only ride it 176 miles. Wife reminded me that I didn't particularly care to ride her XT225. We had the 225 and a 250, after she fell in Colorado she tried my 250 and liked it better, wouldn't let me have it back. It only took me a couple of months of riding her 225 before I bought another 250... Ok, not getting the 225, even though it's got the Clark tank on it.

Last bike? WWRD, what would Reggie do? ok, I am 65, been up and down the ladder of cc's. Not riding as hard as I did even 5 years ago when me and my friend rode the White Rim Trail. So what does the next 5 years look like? Running errands and light forest road riding. Maybe some easier single track.

I may have found a 2017 XT250, while the internet search brought it up the dealer inventory did not, I feel that it has been sold already. I'll find out this week. But right now I leaning towards a 2021. No hassles, available, just mo money.

So far, I've used Yamalube 10W-40 in my XT250. Next change, I'm switching to Valvoline 4-Stroke Motorcycle Full Synthetic 10W-40 just because.

As you may remember I have owned both. But thanks for the reminder. I am going to update the wanted to buy thread in a minute.

Thanks for the info. I’m going to try the Maddog cover as well.
Do

I'm not sure about the part number, it was over 10 years ago. I had to call them. They knew which one I needed. Apparently, at least at the time, they sold a lot of them for the XT225.

http://kientech.com/ExtendedFuelScrews.htm

This looks like a blast! It's about a 3.5 hour trip for me, I might have to sign up for a class!

So there's hope!

I haven't heard the term "dwell" in a long time. I have a 1970s Actron dwell meter and timing light. I still have 2 cars that have points ignition.

I suggest turning the engine over with a ratchet a few times while watching the valves open and close. When checking/adjusting the valves, let them close, then turn the engine just a bit further, to make sure they are closed. They will both be closed when the piston is at or near TDC on the compression/power stroke. You can remove the plug and stick something like a straw or model paint brush handle into the cylinder (it needs to be long enough to not fall all the way down into the cylinder when the piston is at BDC) and turn the engine until it sticks out as far as it will before starting to drop. When it is out as far as it will go, the piston is at TDC (top dead center, or, at the top of it's stroke) You can also just hold your finger or thumb over the spark plug hole and feel for compression. That will tell you when the piston is coming up on TDC on the compression stroke.

Dell hardware has generally been good. I also had reasonably good luck with Linux Mint MATE 64 bit. I was running it on 25 year old Dells. Laugh if you want but those laptops had original HDs, keyboard, screens, memory, etc. all working fine. The last upgrade I did to Mint 20.1 trashed my VLC player. Linux is good at deprecating features without announcement. You upgrade and suddenly something doesn't work. Anyway it was time to move to 2014 era Dells for which I have 3 of them. The M4800 was marketed as a high end mobile workstation priced at $2,400 new. You can get pristine ones refurbished for about $600. If you're OK with a few scratches the price drops. These are quad core and blazing fast for the high end applications I need to run. PCB design, CAD and 3D modeling software gobble up CPU and GPU resources. The HDMI port with a 24" monitor is something you'll never part with once it's setup. The older Dells didn't support this. I'd hazard a guess HDMI wasn't even born back then for PCs.

The new Dells came with Windows 10. I wiped that out when I installed Manjaro. But re-installed it as a guest O/S using virtual box. It was a nightmare to get it installed and activated. But it runs fine now and you wouldn't know it isn't a native Windows 10 machine when running.

I just finished trying an update (Manjaro) which usually takes about 5 minutes. This time it was reported as taking 6 hours! WTF. So I had to use sudo pacman-mirrors -g to fix that problem. It's this kind of BS people don't want to put up with. As in all of a sudden, SURPRISE, it ain't working. My python speed test client went out too which I had to fix. So 1.5 hours screwing around with that. The curse of Linux is all the shared object libraries it requires and trying its best to deal with dependencies. POSIX tries to impose some standards but that may be a decade away. Everyone keeps throwing their Linux hats into the ring with better ideas. Which is much like this week's flavor experience. As for Linux, you need some IT and command line experience to navigate the quirks. It's knowledge many people don't have and don't want. They want plug and play, warranties and support. So it's death by fire or extreme heat. None of the distros are without issues. That said, I much prefer Linux to commercial Windows or MAC.

Thanks for the updates. Choices are always good. May the market remain free, open and robust.

George - Thanks for the post. We need to keep the momentum up. As for Woody Guthrie, he was Arlo Guthrie's father. Somewhat of a stormy past with details HERE if anyone is curious. Not what you'd expect either but interesting reading. The song title rings true. This land truly is your land so let's take care of it.

This is basically what I thought would be right, not the Brown line I drew joining feed, and blue from button.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/U1UebJhHkoYXxgTp7

That's better. Now we can see the parts. Good looking presentation. Parts look to be in great shape. Best of luck moving them, Mike..

The conversation was that the lane we had just done was closed, it wasn’t, and the next one was one way, which it couldn’t be. He was mistaken in thinking a voluntary code of conduct by a four wheel drive group applied to us on two wheels. He was pleasant enough.
The lane in the logged area is called Bwlch Y Groes, one of the hardest lanes we ride, the logging has dried out the first part, we turn around at the point it gets really difficult, not done since my Serow days. My 76 year old riding buddy, not on this run, keeps threatening to take us all over it.
Great to be out.

Back when I was younger and in good condition changing a motorcycle tire was no big deal. I learned to change them on a dirt bike before I was old enough to get a license. But now that I am old and disabled, things are different. I could still do it at home, in fact I recently put a new tire on the back of my XT, while it sat in my house, over a period of 2 days. My legs cramped up bad from sitting on the floor working on it. You wouldn't likely have that problem. I have an aftermarket centerstand on my XT, so having a way to hold the bike up while removing the wheel is not a big deal. It's being able to get the wheel off, get the tire off the wheel, replace the tube and get the tire back on the wheel, and the wheel back on the bike, all at one time, then being able to get back on the bike and ride out. If you are in good condition that would not be an issue. I've done it dozens of times out in the desert or in the forest over the past several decades.

Fortunately, tube type tires are much easier to get on and off the rim than tubeless tires, because they have a much thinner more flexible sidewall and bead. You do need to be careful not to damage the tube with tire tools, and make sure it is not pinched between the tire bead and rim when reinstalling it. It's 10 times easier if you use some kind of lubricant on the bead. I carry a spray bottle of tire mounting lube with me. You won't likely have to break the bead, by the time you realize you have a flat tire, the bead will already be broken. I don't have to deal with a bead lock, because I keep my tires inflated to 32 psi. If you run low pressures you will need the bead lock, at least in the rear.

Really nice & clean conversion! Welcome.

rocmoc n So. AZ

Our country has plenty of issues with very few people offering viable solutions. Too many don't actually care about America so much as their own bottom line.

Always good to hear a success story. Thanks for posting and encouraging. Ride safely and enjoy.