Quick questions before I dig into my carbs....

[draketrumpet]

Hi guys. Nope, not dead, just lyin' low.
When I parked my bike to do the steering stem, I had no idea my g-ma would be having a funeral before I got my bearings, and hence my bike sat, with fuel in the carbs, for over 2 weeks without being started. It hasn't been the same animal since (performance and fuel economy wise), even with a whole bottle of seafoam. I figure the best place to start then, is with my carbs.

I'm about ready to start cleaning my carbs, but wanted to ask a few questions first that were not addressed in all the tech tips.

1. Carb cleaners: do I need both the basket style to dip them in and the spray style?
2. related: I know I can't put the plastic/rubber parts in the basket style cleaner, do I need to protect them from the spray stuff as well?
3. Compressed air: space has not allowed me to get an air compressor/tank, is it necessary to blow things dry, or can they air dry and let the bits of moisture work their way through to burn a way? Otherwise, just another thing to buy if I must.
4. Valve shims first? I know I need to address my valves. Would it be wiser to do the valves first and then the carbs? If a valve isn't fully closing all the way, will it promote my carbs getting dirty faster?

Please keep in mind, I've never seen the insides of these things so I'm only partly sure of how they work. So, any explanations you think might be necessary to understand what you are saying, please include.

Hope you are all having a blast riding this summer! It sure is nice not to worry about wobbling anymore.

[CatatonicBug]

1. No. The spray stuff is fine. Expect to use at least 2 cans for 1 set of carbs.

2. No. You can spray over the surfaces with abandon. It's just the submersion and soaking that the seals don't like.

3. Compressed air is nice, and is helpful for blasting the remnants of gunk out, but I think you can get away without it. However, owning a small pancake compressor or something you can carry in one hand would definitely be worth the investment. It makes filling tires a whole lot easier too.

4. I'm clueless on that one...

[XS1100_OEM4ME]

Valves

I would do the valve adj. first as you will have to syc. carbs twice if you do carbs first. If you dont have cash for an air comp. you can get compressed air in a can at any store that sells computers, works fine on carbs.

[Rickrod3]

I'm a student of these bike like yourself

Sorry to hear about your G ma.
Lost mine last year she was 98. She had a good run.

As I understand properly shimmed valves is part of the compression equation.
Bad compresion would effect carb operation among other things.

Maybe a short cut could be do a compression test.
If your compression is in spec, you could hold off a little longer on checking the valves.

JAT
Rick

[DiverRay]

Do a valve adjustment, sync the carbs, and see how it runs. If the valves are too tight, the bike will NOT run properly. If it's still bad, THEN go through the carbs. CatatonicBug has has the rest covered pretty well.

[draketrumpet]

Thanks Rick. Mine was 93 and had been without her first husband for 25 years, so she was good and ready.

I know compressin is wacked b/c when we did the sync at John and Kat's 1 & 4 were blowing and sucking, making it very hard to get a good read before we dampened the vac lines up a bit. Everyone there thought it was probably a valve issue, so I will now go to work on figuring out valves first.

Thanks guys. At least she still runs decent, just can't beat some of the sportier cars off the line

[XS1100_OEM4ME]

Valves

Sounds like some of your vavles be to tight on clearance, could be other things causing low comp. but the cheapest/best situation would just a valve adj issue. Hope that is all it is. Also sorry about your Grandmother.

[XS1100_OEM4ME]

cam adj.

Just a thought. When you have your valve cover off is a great time to check cam chain adj, you can "see" that "all" slack is out.

[Rickrod3]

Thanks Rick. Mine was 93 and had been without her first husband for 25 years, so she was good and ready.

I know compressin is wacked b/c when we did the sync at John and Kat's 1 & 4 were blowing and sucking, making it very hard to get a good read before we dampened the vac lines up a bit. Everyone there thought it was probably a valve issue, so I will now go to work on figuring out valves first.

Thanks guys. At least she still runs decent, just can't beat some of the sportier cars off the line

Sounds like the right way to go

Rick

[DGXSER]

Agreed that the valves are simple enough and will effect how the engine runs and therefore how the carbs perform.

I'll add that if you do not have or use compressed air, get you soem guitar or piano wire to push through the passages instead just to be sure it is clean in there, especially those enrichment jets in the bowls.

[WMarshy]

And pound out those emulsion tubes with a wooden dowel, there can be a lot of gunk hiding behind them!

[Rickrod3]

And pound out those emulsion tubes with a wooden dowel, there can be a lot of gunk hiding behind them!

I know the emusion tubes have to come out but: If and when I have to do mine over again, I will soak them in oil a long time.
I got so much wood stuck in the first one I tried to get out that, I had to replace it.
Rookie mistake I'm sure.

Rick

[skids]

And pound out those emulsion tubes with a wooden dowel, there can be a lot of gunk hiding behind them!

Of course if you loosen the main jet a few turns, you can tap the jet to loosen the emulsion tube. Just don't do what Climers says (don't pull them up with needle nose pliars!)

[Larrym]

Puffs for the Magic BS34 Mikuni Dragons...

[*]Compressed air: space has not allowed me to get an air compressor/tank, is it necessary to blow things dry, or can they air dry and let the bits of moisture work their way through to burn a way? Otherwise, just another thing to buy if I must.

Compressed air:



And yes...I'm serious. Take a look at the bottom right:



Puffing out all the orifices with air after spritzing them with the spray cleaner is always a good idea. Wearing safety glasses while you're spraying those little orifices out with a toxic cleaner is an even better idea as Murphy's Law sez you'll find out where the stuff comes out of the carb too late to duck or close your eyes. Best idea yet is to not do any of this cleaning/spraying with cleaner/puffing with the $5 air blaster indoors near any sources of ignition.

Bench test the carbs for leaks upside down and right side up before installing.





Cleaning a set of 4 matched Mikuni BS34 II's truly is an amazing process...