Hi Chicago, I think with the symptoms you have experienced (richness, sooty plugs) it would be worthwhile stripping and cleaning the carb, in particular identify then clean all the small air ways, jets, and fuel ways, also check the float is not catching on the bowl and being held down, or that the float has a leak, all this does not take long and does not cost anything apart from maybe a gasket and some carb cleaner.
My bike would not tick over properly, it has a 389 carb (more or less the same as 376) which was flooding and I found the tickler (which acts as a breather for the float bowl) was blocked, before that it was the fuel supply to the idle jet was blocked.
cheers kiwigf, i did give the carb a quick clean when i got the bike but was thinking i should really buy a refurb kit and give it a good going over. i blew all the airways with compressed air and petrol, the float was ok with no petrol leaking in, but the spacer on the end off the pin that holds the float in place did seem a little to narrow and allowed the float to move side to side a bit, so prob a service kit a good idea, cheer's fella, all the best chicago.
hi there tedflash/metalflake11 and a101960. the brushes...now you mention it, i cleaned the slip ring twice yesterday, once in the morning, and about 3- hours later and was quite supprised to see how much carbon was on the slip ring after such a short time, so chances are that ive bought the crappy type with really soft carbon. i bought them off ebay, they were described as "lucas kf2 pickups" with a very misleading photo. when they arrived they were quite a bit different in design from my original pickups and had a hexegon type shape to the top of them. and the gaskets had to be choped down to fit.
so next thing on my shopping list is a decent new set of pickups. any suggestions for a good source in the uk ??.
cheer's fella's.
the slip ring...had a feeling it would have to be replaced, was quite a bad crack i would imagine its a similar situation of have a crack in a car distributor/rotor cap and sparks flying all over the place. it certainly wont be helping thing's i guess, pitty as apart from the crack it looked in very good condition, shame.
couple of questions again though,
would i be able to replace the slip ring with the magneto still in position, and without upsetting the timming ??.
also any suggestions for a know good source for these in the uk.
all the best fella's and thanks for the help, chicago