76 Cyclone oddities

[greenblood]

I finally got around to cleaning up my 340 Cyclone and found some mysteries that I hope some of you guys can help explain.

1. When I bought the sled it did not have the ignition switch (nor kill switch) wired in. The previous owner (who thankfully did not ride it much) would just choke it to shut it off. When I went to hook it back up, I first found the switch to be bad, then when tracing the schematic could not find the white wire to complete the circuit. It was cut out of the harness. Thankfully I have a service manual and was reading up on testing ignition/kill switches and it said that in 77 machines and 76 machines that were serviced that the white wire was removed and the switch wire was routed to a black wire out of the CDI box. Does anyone know why?

2. I pulled the carb apart and found a 240 main jet (370 is listed as stock). Seems like the engine should have been running horribly lean, but plugs are black/wet (perhaps from the choking to shut off). I plan to bring the carb back to stock and go from there. Would other conditions cause the rich condition that someone tried to counter with the smaller main?

Thanks.

[400brian]

A mis-adjusted choke could be contributing to an over rich situation.

Go through the carb, put things back to specs, and see where you need to go from there.

[JDT]

Yes, with all the action that choke received as a cut-off switch it may be that the plunger spring is too weak to hold the choke closed.

Todd

[JDT]

On the wiring issue the only thing I can think of is they may have had corrosion problems at the terminal block.

But I bet Rich will have the real answer tomorrow.

Todd

[JDT]

Rich were they experiencing problems maintaining a good ground?

I have seen crustly looking ternimal blocks on this series of machine.

There is another recent post with similar a problem.

Todd