Ian Holfield
New
A few weeks ago someone posted about wanting to do some research on 'apports'. I don't recall whether I responded or not, but I do recall thinking it'd be a hard thing to research, unless you intended hanging around some Indian swami with a history of apport appearance.
I know they have been reported in relation to some Western mediums, but it's not a subject which I've researched and I wasn't particularly interested in doing so personally.
I'm now forced to rethink my position, due to a recent experience.
It's left me with the feeling that this was a genuine 'apport experience', and the implications are that whatever was responsible has a puckish sense of humour.......
Basically, what happened is that while rebuilding a set of four vintage Keihin motorcycle CV carburettors, which I'd bought recently to replace a set on a 1976 Honda GL1000, a piece which I'd noticed was missing when I opened the new to me carbs initially 'reappeared' in a way which is completely inexplicable under normal terms.
The job of rebuilding these carb sets is extremely tricky, requiring unbroken attention to detail, and rigid organisation. All the tiny parts of each carb go into numbered boxes one for each carb.....I used a masterclass DVD by Randall Washington to make sense of the job, as all the workshop manuals leave things out or explain it so badly it's easy to mess up.
I'd done the job before, but watched the DVD again just in case, such is the level of trickiness.
Here's the sequence of events as posted on a specialist GL1000 website today.
******************************
I'm posting this here as you guys will have some insight into the 'oddity' of the event...assuming you've ever taken a Wing Keihin carb to bits!
I rebuilt the original 1976 carbs for our yellow rig last year, using a Randakk kit, and his excellent DVD. They worked brilliantly after the rebuild, the only slight problem being an intermittently sticking right-side choke mechanism.
After using the rig I realised it had an iffy head gasket, which then blew completely after a long trial run.
I then decided that as I had to strip the thing to do the heads, I might as well upgrade iit to '78 spec, and eventually I got all the bits together....both cams, the 78 carb rack, and the 78 ATU which as we all know goes under the points set on the back of the left cam, and advances & retards the ignition to suit the cam profile.
SO.....the heads are back on the rig, and I turned my attention to the carb rack. I'd already checked the float columns were all present and correct, as were all the bowl screws, which is a good sign.
I had hoped I could avoid rebuilding these carbs as it is a bit of a faff, so I ran a vacuum test on them, and both air and fuel circuits were leaking.....so I had to do a full rebuild. Luckily I had a spare Randakk rebuild kit.
On Tuesday 17th, my birthday, I took the float bowls off, and immediately noticed something was wrong.....I had one float which appeared to have no needle valve! I then realised that the fuel shut-off needle valve WAS there, but it wasn't attached to the little brass tongue on the float, and after removing the float by carefully drifting the hinge pin out, in two stages, I realised that the spring clip which attaches the needle valve to the float was missing.
Three carbs had the spring clip, one had no clip.
I removed all of the floats and compared the valve needles. I couldn't understand how the spring clip could have fallen off, as it seems unclear how it's attached to the valve....I tried removing the spring clip from another valve and couldn't get it off at all.
I put the 'naked' needle-valve in my large plastic parts tub, used specifically for this carb job, and empty at the beginning of the job, and went to the barn to retrieve my 1977 carb rack, which was on a top shelf needing ladder access. I brought the rack into the house, removed a needle valve from one carb and put it into the small parts tub for the carb with the problem, returning the 77 rack to the barn.
Yesterday I finished the reassembly, so all the bits were on the 78 rack and the big plastic bin was almost empty except for some tools and baggies, and I found, in the corner, a cutoff valve needle......WITH SPRING!!!! :shock: :shock: :shock:
I had seen this in the box on Tuesday but hadn't realised its significance, as I assumed it was one of the pieces still to go back in the last two carbs......but it isn't, it appears to be the 'naked' valve I'd put in the box earlier, which has by some mysterious means 'found' a spring clip!
Now, I'm well aware that this is a very peculiar situation, I had mentioned to my wife that I had a spring clip missing when I stripped the carbs on 14th and 15th, and she recalled this, but when I told her a spring had appeared from nowhere on the naked valve she couldn't accept the implications, and preferred to assume that I had made a mistake when I had seen one carb with no clip.....even though I'd removed the valve and examined it closely, and tried to remove the clip from another valve, concluding that it was beyond simple manipulation to get the thing off.
I realised the only "normal" explanation was that I'd removed TWO valves from the 77 rack, instead of the one single one which I recalled having removed, had fitted four into the 78, leaving one in the bin with the clip on it, and tossing the naked one into the kitchen rubbish bin.
If this was the explanation, then I should find one valve missing on the 77 rack in the barn, so this morning, to clarify this odd situation, I recovered the 77 rack from the top shelf of the barn racking, and removed all four float bowls.
As you can see, I found all four valves and springs intact!
I know what I saw, a spring was missing from a rack I'd bought off the internet, and now it's back on the needle valve.
To make 100% sure this is either the same naked valve which has 'found' a spring,, or to see if it's a NEW valve and spring, and to be 100% certain I didn't toss the naked valve into the bin, I did a full forensic examination of the bin, removing every particle of hair, broken crockery, tea-leaves, cat food, plastic bags, bits of carb I had deliberately tossed like the float gaskets and the kidney shaped seals, jet O rings and runner O rings....a nasty job, but I wanted to be 100% clear what has happened and cover all the bases.
There was no naked valve in the bin.
Anyone on here removed the spring clip from a Keihin GL1000 fuel shutoff needle valve?
Here's the valve with spring....looks as if it's easy enough to get the spring off, in fact, but the point is, mine was mising....it had been reassembled without the spring.
I know they have been reported in relation to some Western mediums, but it's not a subject which I've researched and I wasn't particularly interested in doing so personally.
I'm now forced to rethink my position, due to a recent experience.
It's left me with the feeling that this was a genuine 'apport experience', and the implications are that whatever was responsible has a puckish sense of humour.......
Basically, what happened is that while rebuilding a set of four vintage Keihin motorcycle CV carburettors, which I'd bought recently to replace a set on a 1976 Honda GL1000, a piece which I'd noticed was missing when I opened the new to me carbs initially 'reappeared' in a way which is completely inexplicable under normal terms.
The job of rebuilding these carb sets is extremely tricky, requiring unbroken attention to detail, and rigid organisation. All the tiny parts of each carb go into numbered boxes one for each carb.....I used a masterclass DVD by Randall Washington to make sense of the job, as all the workshop manuals leave things out or explain it so badly it's easy to mess up.
I'd done the job before, but watched the DVD again just in case, such is the level of trickiness.
Here's the sequence of events as posted on a specialist GL1000 website today.
******************************
I'm posting this here as you guys will have some insight into the 'oddity' of the event...assuming you've ever taken a Wing Keihin carb to bits!
I rebuilt the original 1976 carbs for our yellow rig last year, using a Randakk kit, and his excellent DVD. They worked brilliantly after the rebuild, the only slight problem being an intermittently sticking right-side choke mechanism.
After using the rig I realised it had an iffy head gasket, which then blew completely after a long trial run.
I then decided that as I had to strip the thing to do the heads, I might as well upgrade iit to '78 spec, and eventually I got all the bits together....both cams, the 78 carb rack, and the 78 ATU which as we all know goes under the points set on the back of the left cam, and advances & retards the ignition to suit the cam profile.
SO.....the heads are back on the rig, and I turned my attention to the carb rack. I'd already checked the float columns were all present and correct, as were all the bowl screws, which is a good sign.
I had hoped I could avoid rebuilding these carbs as it is a bit of a faff, so I ran a vacuum test on them, and both air and fuel circuits were leaking.....so I had to do a full rebuild. Luckily I had a spare Randakk rebuild kit.
On Tuesday 17th, my birthday, I took the float bowls off, and immediately noticed something was wrong.....I had one float which appeared to have no needle valve! I then realised that the fuel shut-off needle valve WAS there, but it wasn't attached to the little brass tongue on the float, and after removing the float by carefully drifting the hinge pin out, in two stages, I realised that the spring clip which attaches the needle valve to the float was missing.
Three carbs had the spring clip, one had no clip.
I removed all of the floats and compared the valve needles. I couldn't understand how the spring clip could have fallen off, as it seems unclear how it's attached to the valve....I tried removing the spring clip from another valve and couldn't get it off at all.
I put the 'naked' needle-valve in my large plastic parts tub, used specifically for this carb job, and empty at the beginning of the job, and went to the barn to retrieve my 1977 carb rack, which was on a top shelf needing ladder access. I brought the rack into the house, removed a needle valve from one carb and put it into the small parts tub for the carb with the problem, returning the 77 rack to the barn.
Yesterday I finished the reassembly, so all the bits were on the 78 rack and the big plastic bin was almost empty except for some tools and baggies, and I found, in the corner, a cutoff valve needle......WITH SPRING!!!! :shock: :shock: :shock:
I had seen this in the box on Tuesday but hadn't realised its significance, as I assumed it was one of the pieces still to go back in the last two carbs......but it isn't, it appears to be the 'naked' valve I'd put in the box earlier, which has by some mysterious means 'found' a spring clip!
Now, I'm well aware that this is a very peculiar situation, I had mentioned to my wife that I had a spring clip missing when I stripped the carbs on 14th and 15th, and she recalled this, but when I told her a spring had appeared from nowhere on the naked valve she couldn't accept the implications, and preferred to assume that I had made a mistake when I had seen one carb with no clip.....even though I'd removed the valve and examined it closely, and tried to remove the clip from another valve, concluding that it was beyond simple manipulation to get the thing off.
I realised the only "normal" explanation was that I'd removed TWO valves from the 77 rack, instead of the one single one which I recalled having removed, had fitted four into the 78, leaving one in the bin with the clip on it, and tossing the naked one into the kitchen rubbish bin.
If this was the explanation, then I should find one valve missing on the 77 rack in the barn, so this morning, to clarify this odd situation, I recovered the 77 rack from the top shelf of the barn racking, and removed all four float bowls.
As you can see, I found all four valves and springs intact!
I know what I saw, a spring was missing from a rack I'd bought off the internet, and now it's back on the needle valve.
To make 100% sure this is either the same naked valve which has 'found' a spring,, or to see if it's a NEW valve and spring, and to be 100% certain I didn't toss the naked valve into the bin, I did a full forensic examination of the bin, removing every particle of hair, broken crockery, tea-leaves, cat food, plastic bags, bits of carb I had deliberately tossed like the float gaskets and the kidney shaped seals, jet O rings and runner O rings....a nasty job, but I wanted to be 100% clear what has happened and cover all the bases.
There was no naked valve in the bin.
Anyone on here removed the spring clip from a Keihin GL1000 fuel shutoff needle valve?
Here's the valve with spring....looks as if it's easy enough to get the spring off, in fact, but the point is, mine was mising....it had been reassembled without the spring.
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