In the process of rebuilding my Nikki, 83 gsl model, and have a question. Up on the air horn,where the floats attatch, is a solenoid that is threaded in, a power valve I believe. The Haynes manual shows a simialar valve but with a triangular mounting plate with three screws, where mine is threaded into a brass coupler on the carb. the solenoid activates a shaft with a plastic stopper on the insed, up by the fuel inlet. Here are the questions:

1). What does it do? Is it emission related, power related, or even necessary? Mine has a black wire w/yellow tracer single wire that is broke off at the solenoid.

2). When the rat's nest is removed, will it be removed anyway, so is this a reason to go ahead and do it now?

Now for the tach. It is not working. The manual doesn't seem to make sense to me to follow the tach signal to trace it. Feeds off the dizzy to the harness to the insturment cluster right? anyone know off the top of their head what the wire color is?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Travis Nelson

 

Sounds like you are describing the float bowl vent solenoid, which needs to be hooked up in order for the car to run. The tach runs off the secondary ignition system, so do you have spark on your trailing ignition (might be a bad ignitor)?

 

I believe that is correct, after referring to the manual, says a vent solenoid. So what does this do? I ask this as previous owner ran car like that without it for some time, so wondering how necessary is it? Not saying that it is not needed to operate PROPERLY, just curious. Also, anyone have one that they would part with for cheap? Again this is for a 1983 model. The manual shows the three bolt mounting base part, where mine is a screw in to a brass adaptor. Don't know if this is just a model year difference, or some aftermarket part, though that seems like a stretch that that is the case.

Cheers,
Travis Nelson

 

my 83 vent sol. wire broke as well.. just knife off some of the rubber around its top and solder the wire back on.. your other option is to just plug the hole where it threads into, however your fuel in the bowls will be evaporating ALL THE TIME... this will foul them up faster than stock operation.

 

Not using it (unless the carb has been properly modified, like Sterling does) will result in flooding issues.