Tuning $

[New2Me]

What would be a reasonable cost to have a shop/person clean and tune the carbs? The more I research how to tune these suckers the more I realize I dont have the time to do everything I should.

[natemoen]

Clean and tune. 300-700 dollars.

[WMarshy]

Just a basic cleaning will bring about 300 without any parts or even a sync! You start talking changing or replacing jets and that number hits 500 real quick and I could see it reaching 700. Now ya gotta ask yourself, is your time worth more than $200 an hour? You should be able to do a basic cleaning for your first time in less than 2-3 hours. At a $100/hr your saving yourself money!

[SFerinTEXAS]

As anal as I am about carb cleaning on a NEW to me bike I will spend at least 10 hours to no limit. When its done its done and done right I would never let someone else touch them.

[DGXSER]

Hey NEW2ME,

Reality is that most shops you go to do not have any one around that knows hwo to work on these things. Most folks that have taken their XS11 to a shop to have them tuned up get them back running worse than it started. Its old technology that the younger techs do not know how to work on.

Now, these carbs are really very simple and pretty easy to work on. So I would just bite the bullet, give up some riding time, and spend it as quality time with your new girl. dig into those carbs, and get them nice and clean inside and out before you go throwing them back in to get out riding. Time will greatly vary depending how dirty they are to begin with. If they are not to dirty, it can be finished in 3-4 hours. But very dirty and it can grow to easily 10-15 hours.

As for the synch, again, it can be done pretty inexpensively and in less than 3 hours easy.

[neJeff]

I'm back into this stuff after 11 years away so keep that in mind but taking it in to a shop for carb work should be the LAST resort. I always did my own servicing/cleaning of carbs and I'm not a mechanic for sure. My brother was always taking his in and in 3 years they went in 4 times at about $200 a time (that was 11 years ago) and they never were right. I also loved it when he took it in and they said call me back in 6 weeks and we'll see where we are at with them. I just saw an ad yesterday a guy is charging $50 a carb +parts and I know that is half of what dealers are charging now but why not get a Clymer's, 8 cans of cleaner, a carb tuner and then take your time. Cleaning the jets many times is all that is necessary to make it a runner again. Just my two cents...

[Bonz]

New2Me,

There are probably some XS'ers in your neck of the woods that could and would offer to lend a hand doing the carbs.

I haven't looked, but I would think there is a carb tech tip on the forum that takes you through the procedure.

I am of the same mindset as others, because it costs SO much and I don't like taking the bike for that kind of service to a shop because "good enough" to them might not be the best you could do yourself or the fine-tuning of the bike.

Good luck, but I agree unless you absolutely can't tackle it yourself and there is no nearby help from other XS'ers (or other biker friends that are familiar with carbs), you don't need to pay the $$ to have them done by a dealer or other service place.

[crazy steve]

The local shops around here all charge about $400 plus parts for a rebuild/sync, so seeing $500+ as the final bill is pretty common. And none have very good reputations for tuning older bikes. If you have a non-stock combo (pods and/or aftermarket exhaust) that will need tuning, add several more hundred $$$ to the price at least...

If you've never tackled carbs before, they're not as intimidating as you think. One thing to be sure of is to have good, sharp screwdrivers for disassembly/reassembly as dull, worn tools will easily damage the soft brass jets and complicate things. Even if you really take your time, these can be done in a weekend.

If you still decide that this isn't something you want to do, a member here offers a rebuild service so you might check with him. Look here: http://xs1100carbs.blogspot.com/ You'll still have to do the final tune/sync to your bike, but he'll deliver carbs that will be very close.

[CatatonicBug]

New2Me,

There are probably some XS'ers in your neck of the woods that could and would offer to lend a hand doing the carbs.

I am sure that is the case. I know I've seen several others on here in the Chicagoland area, so it should be an easy Saturday get-together, and you'd be all set.

[redbone]

these guys are all correct. it's not as bad as you mite think. i was intimidated a bit myself before i dug in to them. take your time. count each turn of every screw you remove and write it down. do one carb at a time. only open a second carb if you think something ain't rite and you need to stare and compare. always assume someone else has been poking around in them carbs before you [unless your the original owner]. by the time you get to the 3rd carb you'll feel like an expert. the biggest pain in the a$$ is gettin them off the bike.

[New2Me]

WOW I never thought it would be that much to tune the carbs! That's insane! Well I bought a colortune and a set of sync gauges. But after reading a write-up on here on how to tune the carbs I was a bit overwhelmed. It talked about main jets, pilot jets, air jets, needle jets........ just a lot to take in and a lack of experience to know what to change.

The author did describe having the same mods as me and only adjusts the float levels rather than jet sizes. That seems easy enough but I think my pilot circuit is my problem. Its moody on start-up and I have a mild miss fire till shes all warmed up. As I try to leave she hick-ups in the carb and this goes on for up to a mile. I dont give it a lot of throttle when shes acting up cause I dont know what she will do in return. Once we get a mile out it clears up and she seems to run like a dream...... till the next morning.

[latexeses]

You might try a bit of Seafoam in the tank first. May save you some time.

Good visual of a carb teardown....

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24955

[New2Me]

You might try a bit of Seafoam in the tank first. May save you some time.

Good visual of a carb teardown....

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24955

Thank you for that link. That is going to be very helpful

[tom clisham]

If you really decide to go to a shop, there's one in the Rockford area that has
a 30+ year Yamaha mechanic ( he actually assembled one of mine when it was new), that you can rely on.

They charge around $200.00 to clean & sinc the carbs. It's about 120 miles from you. PM me if you need info. It's not a Yamaha dealer, there's none in Rockford. It's a specialty rice burner shop.

[Winterhawk]

The problem is that no shops know what they are doing when it comes to the XS1100. They will try and put kits in it, like K&L kits that have wrong pilot jets.You shouldn't need any parts. I'll do them all day for $150.00. This is what I was charging Bob Jones at Merriam Cycle to do his bikes over the years. About $300.00 would be a fair price if they are not in to bad of shape. Bench test them for fuel levels and leaks before installing them. This would save you lots of grief.

This bike and carb setup when done right is so sweet as the carbs are the easiest of any bikes I've done to remove the carbs. I think that there may be a chapter in "XS11 Heaven on the best and easiest way to remove them. I'd do them for you but I'd want the bike here to sync it properly.

I've been riding mine to work every night instead of the $15,000 Harley Ultra. The XS11's when tuned right just makes a person want to keep going and not stop. LOL