First carb cleaning; not without hickups! (PICS)

[Titans]

Hey guys, this is a satellite post from my 81 SH rebuild.

My parents are away for the week so I've commandeered the kitchen table for carb dis-assembly , and it has not gone entirely smooth thus far.

The carbs themselves are pretty clean. Last year when I first brought home the bike, I removed the carbs and my father took them to some 'specialist' he knows to have the carbs dipped. Unfortunately, I do not think they were done properly.

I don't believe the jets were removed before dipping: there is evidence of this when I remove the jets (presence of gunk). Additionally, I don't believe the butterfly seals were removed prior to dipping which I'm starting to think will cause me a lot of headaches down the road. I'll be looking into a method to check the integrity of these seals. Are there any other dipping hazards I should be weary about? (choke mechanism?)

On the bright side, the diaphragms appear to be in good shape: I can not see any holes when looking at them into a light. However, the rubber is not as resilient as I think it should be: it almost has the texture of canvas!? Should I be concerned with this?

I've also encountered a few stuck screws and despite using liquid wrench, I've managed to strip a few of them. This is the price to pay for inexperience I guess. Stripped screws include 2 float bowl screws on non-choke side and unfortunately, the secondary jet for the choke-most side carb (i'll get some pics of this when I get it out; I'll be using a screw extractor.

Another observation I made is with respects to the float pin. I noticed that when the carbs are upside down, thus the floats being at their maximum 'closed' position, the float spigot does not contact the float pin. This leads me to believe that when the carbs are right-side up, the float, regardless of being in the maximum 'float' position, will not be closing the float pin.
In the pic I attached, you can see the float spigot (where it should be touching the float pin) is parallel with the rest of the float carriage: should it be adjusted downwards at all to ensure contact with the float pin?

Here are some pics:










All feedback is welcome! Also, if it would help, please request a pic for diagnosis and I'll upload it

[fredintoon]

Hi Titans and welcome,
dipping the carbs: some dipping fluids are OK but others dissolve rubber parts.
If the rubber parts you can get at to examine are still good, hopefully the butterfly shaft seals are also still good. Let's hope so because they are a swine to change.
Most likely your carbs need a total teardown; this includes the enrichening circuits. You gotta pull the choke shaft to unscrew the brass plungers to spray carb cleaner down there until it sprays out of those small holes in the carb bore.
Work on the carbs in a big ol' cafeteria tray so the parts can't get lost so easily.
Really look for the small balls & springs that click into the choke shaft at #1 & #4 carbs.
Remove each and every crosspoint fastener in the entire carb rack and toss them.
Replace them with equivalent Allen head screws.

[jjz28]

I did the same thing on my float bowl screw (1 of them). I took a grinder and made it a straight head but i will be getting some better screws thats for sure. Good luck.

[natemoen]

Looks like you have some more disassemble to do. The emulsion tubes need to come out, those are the brass tubes that the main jet screws into. The float needle seats need to come out and you might as well change the o-ring on it. Can't tell if you pulled the idle adjustment needles out, if not pull them too.

[trbig]

Be very careful if removing the choke rod that connects all 4 carbs. It has some detents in it with little tiny spring loaded BB looking things. These are what catch to hold your choke (enrichener) lever at the two different positions. I would suggest the first disassembly of that be done in a large box, so that in case of accidental flying off of the little BB, you won't be scrounging around the kitchen floor with a flashlight.

[Aches n Pains]

Agree with what has been said. They look good to me, including rubber bits, but the whole deal needs to be torn down and cleaned.

I find the following reference to be excellent on cleaning these carbs. It is off a Suzuki forum but the carbs work the same.

http://www.mtsac.edu/~cliff/storage/...d_Tutorial.pdf

One other small point. Parts tend to "wear in" with each other. It is really a good idea to keep all the parts from one carb together as it improves the chance that they will snuggle back together just right.

Aches n Pains

[James England]

Last year when I first brought home the bike, I removed the carbs and my father took them to some 'specialist' he knows to have the carbs dipped. Unfortunately, I do not think they were done properly.

Highly likely, I'd say.

The diaphragms do have a canvas feel/look to them. You should check them all for pinholes, creases with no surface coat, tears etc. They should all be undamaged. Hold them up to a strong light to see.

The carb butterfly seal thing is, as I've said before on this forum, a bit misleading, IMO. People allude to it a lot and it's just about become a fact, merely by repetition. Personally, I'm not convinced that these seals are anything like as delicate and damage-prone as is suggested fairly regularly. On my own carb rebuild, I used copious quantities of brake and clutch cleaner, carb cleaner etc and sloshed the stuff everywhere, including dipping, with no ill effects.

The stripped thread on the jet and the float bowl threads all need fixing properly. I stripped several screws on my Goldwing carbs, mainly because the steel screws had bonded so strongly to the alloy, that unscrewing them just pulled the threads out. They can be repaired with tiny 'Helicoil' repair kits.

[ViperRon]

I am also in agreement with James about the butterfly seals as I never heard about it till I got on the forum.I left my carbs soaking with all other parts out for a week and I have never had a problem with the butterfly seals. It may be that other factors have created this problem for others and not me. My advice is be gentle as possible take pictures if possible when you see anything you do not understand and get it as clean as possible. Pits and bad scratches are not your friend. Put original parts back in their respective carb and the closer to perfect you get the float levels the better chance of the carbs running right.

[motoman]

I find the following reference to be excellent on cleaning these carbs. It is off a Suzuki forum but the carbs work the same.

http://www.mtsac.edu/~cliff/storage/...d_Tutorial.pdf



Aches n Pains

Poor tutorial..............good way to break float pin post amongst other misguided info........

[Lamric]

Hi Titans, have a read of "Cleaning your carbs with a spray", lots of useful info.

[DGXSER]

If you have a dremel like tool, you can easily cut a straight slot into the stuck float bowl screw. I have done it many times. And I do like to replace the float bowl screws with SS socket head cap screws. Also, whoever did the carbs before got your float bowls back on in the wrong locations. The screws should point to the outside of the carbs, so they are accessible when installed.

From what you can see int he pics, your diaphrams look fine, and the carbs in general look almost good enough to eat off of, except when you show that emulsion tube it looks like crap in there. which is why you are correct, you need to break the carbs down completely before you try to clean them. I will warn you to be cautious on the use of the extractor, they are very hard steel and therefor very brittle. They will snap off in the jet if your not careful. Yeah, there is a reason I know that.

[Titans]

If you have a dremel like tool, you can easily cut a straight slot into the stuck float bowl screw. I have done it many times. And I do like to replace the float bowl screws with SS socket head cap screws. Also, whoever did the carbs before got your float bowls back on in the wrong locations. The screws should point to the outside of the carbs, so they are accessible when installed.

From what you can see int he pics, your diaphrams look fine, and the carbs in general look almost good enough to eat off of, except when you show that emulsion tube it looks like crap in there. which is why you are correct, you need to break the carbs down completely before you try to clean them. I will warn you to be cautious on the use of the extractor, they are very hard steel and therefor very brittle. They will snap off in the jet if your not careful. Yeah, there is a reason I know that.

Thanks for the tips! I will definitely be replacing the float bowl hardware; we use a lot of SHSC here where I work so I'll be able to snag them easy.

Also, about the float bowls: are you saying the drain screws should be pointing outwards? That would make more sense! So I should swap 1&4 and 2&3?

[DGXSER]

Yes, swap them over, basically, you will see with all four on that the screws are accesible without removing the tank.