Trouble while accelerating past 35mph

dludeke

Member
Joined
May 17, 2023
Total Posts
14
Total likes
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Location
Royal Oak, MI USA
Took my bike, '73 CL350, out last week after not riding for a few months because of winter. I was cruising around just fine city streets. But once I got onto a faster road, it really bogged down and wouldn’t accelerate past 35mph.

Flash forward to this weekend, took the air boxes off (I replaced the air filters in the fall with new old stock or replacement air filters, which the bike was using before replacing with new, not using pod filters). I took the carbs off thinking the gas went bad this center and would have clogged up a jet. Took it apart and to my surprise it was all pretty dang clean! Ran a guitar string through the jets to make sure and put it all back together. In the garage revved the engine up to 8-9000 RPM it was running like a champ.

Took the bike out today to enjoy the sunshine, same thing happened. Put about two gallons of freah premium fuel in and still having the issue.

Any ideas on what would cause it to lose acceleration
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Moved to the 350 Fuel/Carb section and added year/model to the 1st line.
Take it out a ride it, when the issue occurs pop the gas cap and see if that cures it, might be a plugged cap vent.
 
If the gas cap vent was totally blocked, it seems like the issue would occur eventually regardless of the speed of operation. Also, it generally kills the motor.

If you have inline fuel filters, they could be slowing the flow of gas to the bowls enough that they can't keep up when the fuel demand is high, i.e., at higher speed. Same thing could result from a petcock blockage.

Another possible cause would be poorly synched throttle action. If one throttle arm opens very early, that bowl could run dry faster as that carb is doing more of the work. Once the bowl goes dry, it would be an instant bog and would only pick up again if you lay off the throttle long enough for it to fill up a bit.
 
Your choke flap connected?

Both headers hot or running on 1 cyl?

Your carb pistons moving freely?
 
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