Posted by TonyTuba on March 07, 2002 at 23:17:19:
I was fortunate to spend the afternoon at Dan Oberloh's shop today, and he made a few tweaks to my new King 2341.
Previously, Matt Walters had sent me some Nylon valve guides and Yamaha springs. He suggested the Yamaha springs because they have a thin plastic coating at both ends, which he thought might eliminate an occcassional rattling sound I was experiencing with the factory springs. Changing to the nylon guides requires tapping the piston for the slightly larger thread. A few minutes of work, and...voila...near silence. What a nice change.
Next, the pistons were vented. I had been experiencing the "pop" sound, which was audible with certain slurs (open to second valve, for example). Finally, the first valve piston, which was a bit tight, was lapped.
My next little "tweak" will be to add a water key to the third valve tuning slide. Somebody at UMI made a plumbing oversight.
Anyway, I was struck by what a nice improvement was made by some simple, inexpensive tweaks. The ones I had done may be obvious. I couldn't help but wonder what favorite tweaks others might have discovered.