TOPIC:

I was just reading my service manual and found the waring about using harsh solvents on the carbs of my 76 750 twin, last night i tore down the carbs completely and soaked one of the bodies in a bucket of chem dip carb cleaner for about 30 minutes unaware of this warning. all of the gaskets and plastic pieces were removed that i could see but i want to know if there is any pieces inside the body that cant be removed that i should be worried about. what do you think? thanks

As long as you remove all the plastic pieces and gaskets, Ive never had problem with it. Wear some good rubber gloves or it will put some hurting on your hands. Also don't do it in an enclosed space, have plenty of fresh air.

okay thanks, do you have any suggestions on soaks that may work better than the chem dip? these carbs are especially gross

You need to soak them for 24 hours to be effective. 30 minutes and they just laugh at you.
Used it many times.
Soak them, pull them out and wash them down with water, blow out all the orifices, spray with carb cleaner spray, then blow out again. Wear rubber gloves and safety glasses, that stuff is nasty.

Try a few hours then wash them off with water or if you have good enough gloves brush them with an old toothbrush, repeat as needed. You DO NOT want that crap in your eyes, its your worst nightmare use eye protection. The new stuff isn't as strong as the old stuff I have but they cant make it any more. You need to get some guitar string of various thickness, its cheap. Make sure you clean out all the air & fuel passages. Do you have all the pilot & main jets out, do that first

How long to leave the carbs in the dip depends on how dirty they are. With fresh dip and a normal level of filthiness, overnight typically gets the job done. Modern carb dip isn't as strong as it used to be, but still, no reason to leave the carbs in the sauce longer than absolutely necessary. Main concern is the throttle shaft seals, which are not easily removed.

I was going through old threads trying to remember what folks have said about carb cleaning and carb dip.  I figured this thread was a good one to revive. 

I picked up a set of VM24 to clean up for a friend.  The last few carb racks I did were not very dirty to start with and cleaned up well with my ultrasonic cleaner with a little splash of aircraft simple green.  But this set has a lot more varnish and gunk on them, and the ultrasonic didn't really take it off.

I broke out the big can of Gunk carb dip and put one body in for a few hours.  At some point I remembered that the carb bodies all have that little piece of what looks like nylon in the side to keep the slide from rotating.  Then I started thinking about all of the balls that block off the drill paths for the internal passages.  Those look like they are glued in place with something similar to permanent loctite. 

The carb dip clearly says to keep it away from plastic, and that little tab is pretty clearly plastic.  Is it really safe to put the body in carb dip?  Has anyone had any issue with that one bit of plastic, or the ball plugs coming out? 

This is not my picture, but it shows the nylon piece I'm talking about:



On the other hand, the carb dip does work very very well to clean up the bodies.

 

The VM24 carburetors on my 1981 KZ650-CSR have those nylon/plastic plugs circled in your pic.
I soaked the carb bodies in the good/original Berryman's carb dip overnight and they were unaffected.
This was years ago. I just now checked them just to compare and they look the same as yours.

We've not used Berryman's exactly because of concern about that plastic nub.  Others likely have used it without ill effects.

Yamaha used to offer a water-based carb cleaner (Yamaha PN# ACC-CARBC-LE-NR)  that was near miraculous on thick, hard varnish in ultrasonic tanks.  We used the Yamaha carb dip for many, many years, both yellow label and the later blue label.   Hasn't been available for a few years now.  Likely a victim of the nanny-state eco hand-wringers.  If you can find some NOS, get it!

We've been using a similar water-based product in our ultrasonic tanks from Sharper TeK marketed as 'Shellac-Buster":
www.sharpertek.com/encashandvab.html

It doesn't work as quickly as the discontinued Yamaha potion, but removes hard varnish effectively given enough time.

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE



 

Berryman's won't hurt those plastic inserts.  I've cleaned countless sets of VM in Berryman's and never had a problem.  What will happen, though, is the zinc bodies will turn dark if you leave the carb body in the sauce too long.  I try to minimize the dip time for that reason.  Also, if your dip is well used, and black, that will contribute to the carb bodies turning back faster.