Forgotten For 21 Years, the Freedom Factory Motorcycle RIDES AGAIN!!!

Just wait until I'm riding wheelies on this baby in 4th gear...

Those carbs are tuned with the restriction of the air box, also you need to use a vacuum gauge to tune all 4 in synchronous.

I love Sam. He seems like he’s living his best life and brings so much to the channel.

Really enjoyed seeing good ol LS George light up over this bike. He obviously has a real passion for motorcycles. I hope there's more like this, for him.

30yr motorcycle mechanic here... When the engine is cold, please start it and immediately but carefully feel or temp gun the headers for equal warmth. You're not idling on all four cylinders. That's probably because the carbs haven't been cleaned properly (sorry George!) and they're also out of balance if you've been fiddling (I saw the tops of each carb so am assuming you've moved at least one out of balance). You did the compression test with the throttle closed, it should be wide open during the test. It looked to me as if the high-reading cylinder was probably the most out of balance carb as it's holding the throttle partially open on that cylinder. Take the carbs back off, clean them properly (use a magnifying loupe to look through each jet, especially the pilot jet and make sure they are clear and round holes. I saw the piece of steel wire you had been running through the jets but that may not have opened the holes back up enough, or you've used too big a wire and made the soft brass jets larger... Blow through all internal airways in each carb body. That's important. Please don't adjust jet sizes or mixture screw settings until you have the bike running on all four and carbs balanced. Hope that helps.

Nice seeing George get to work on something he’s passionate about. Didn’t know he was into bikes like that

That elbow preload getting ready to YANK on that throttle killed me 😂 29:37

Those mikuni carbs are really prone to running lean if you take off the airbox. They're vacuum carbs with a slide inside them, and that vacuum determines how wide the venturi in the throat of the carb gets. When you take off the filters, you change the amount of vacuum that the slides are seeing. You can solve that by putting the airbox and filter back on, or by re-jetting the carbs with something bigger. Jets-R-Us carries jets for these carbs in a bunch of sizes, and if you're really trying to go for a rip, you can swap out the needles too while you're at it.

Im pretty sure most of your problem is you need to properly synchronize the carbs with vacuum guages (especially important after a rebuild) - this can solve a lot of issues. You can have a few cylinders lean and a few rich, or some perfect and other lean or rich, or any combination of all that if you haven't synced them. Makes a difference on idle, off idle response and high end power. Tons of information online as far as how to do so. Edit: as others have said, put the air box back on first and you will see improvement just from that. You wouldn't sync the carbs with it removed, so I thought it would go without saying. Sorry for being unclear.

Air filter or "stock air box", carb sync, valve adjust, rubber carb holders. All mandatory when working on these old bikes. I have worked on tons of these old things. No air filters alone will make it run terrible. Added no backpressure with the mufflers cut off and it makes its 10x worse. Cant wait for the next video. 🤘 also for the love of god change the oil, if it sat for a long long time like that sometimes the fuel from the carbs will end up in the engine. Had a old kz1000 one time that had about a half gallon of fuel mixed with the oil after 15 years of sitting.

Synchronizing the carbs is crucial. A vacuum gauge is a must. Of course you want "max" vac on each carb but they MUST be equal. Not a bad idea to adjust the valves but you quite possibly could have some stuck rings. The compression check results speak for themselves. Change the oil with an oil that is high with detergent (Penzoil Ultra Platinum or Valvoline Restore & Protect), run it through multiple heat cycles, drain and refill. The goal is to free up stuck rings.

I have this exact bike. With no airbox and chopped exhaust, all your jets will be wrong and by a lot. My stock bike with airbox and pipes runs a 115 main and center clip on the slides. In your case, think 135 mains or more plus up one, possibly two on the slide. Also your hoses were not set up right on the carbs, one needs to be hooked to the petcock or that carb will run super lean. In addition, the carb boot on the engine side is notorious for cracking, and the o-ring behind it will 100 percent be cracked causing lean running. That’s a good start, and from there is fine tuning of the idle air screw that George was messing with on the top, but he most likely disturbed the bottom fuel screw as well. These are adjusted in tandem as they affect each other with the fuel screw adjusted first and then the pilot air to compensate at idle. Once all that is finished, then you can worry about balancing.

Lmfao that crooked sticker killed me when George said looks good and zoomed in and showed the bubbles.

*** The air box being on and four basic vacuum gauges are REQUIRED to balance and tune the carbs. It’s really the most important step you can do. And look for some cracked rubber boots or trash in the tank that’s plugged the fresh carb also. After sitting that long you’re gonna have some cracked rubber boots that mount the carbs. If it has that style. It’s been a long time since working on bikes that old.

Pranking Tye with the Chevy sticker was awsome, laughed my ass off XD

Any content with Cleet and Squirrel is absolute gold. I love the entire crew, but these 2 are a comedy match made in heaven

Jackstand with the best advice!! “You want to do it twice, or you want to do it once??”

Have you seen him cook. The boy can legitimately chef. Multitalented. We need a special episode about Squirrel.

Protect Sam at all costs. Makes me smile every time he shows up.

Man .. the sound of that running. Every little part from start to stop are so familiar to my ears. I brought an old GS back from the grave years ago. Lots of hours enjoying that thing .. whether riding or wrenching. Pulling, or reinstalling those four carbs was always a miserable pain. But a GREAT bike. Cheers fellas