First time Carb rebuild attempt.....

I have never attempted a carb rebuild before, but I have a set of Carbs from a kz650b1 and I have the carb rebuild kits. What I would like to do is rebuild the carbs after a good soaking to clean them. The carbs are not on the bike. Is there a solution I can get to soak them in overnight?

I don't know of any one soaking solution in particular that will clean them the way they should be cleaned.

Those parts dip buckets (Berrymans for instance) they sell at most auto parts stores are ok for getting the grunge off the surface areas, but won't really remove much of anything in the jets and passages.
IMHO, the only way to be certain that everything is thoroughly cleaned is to completely disassemble the carbs and give them a really good cleaning using carb cleaner and compressed air to blow the passages out.
By doing it this way, it also give you a chance to examine the jets and float needle/seat for excessive wear and damage, and to also make sure that the PO of your bike didn't mis-match the jets in trying to get it running better. Don't laugh, a lot of good intentioned people have used this little "trick" before. :S

Derail wrote:

I have never attempted a carb rebuild before, but I have a set of Carbs from a kz650b1 and I have the carb rebuild kits. What I would like to do is rebuild the carbs after a good soaking to clean them. The carbs are not on the bike. Is there a solution I can get to soak them in overnight?

Look at my bike and location. Varsol, a jug in Walmart will cost you less than $2.00, they get a couple of spray cans of carb cleaner at Crappy Tire. Use the Varsol outside though, as it stinks like hell. I also completely dismantled my carbs, cleaned them and installed new carb kits.

just did as set of small VM carbs this AM.

do not dip any plastic or rubber parts in the berryman's 'dip juice' it's for cleaning up metal. A wooden q-tip is good for needle jet. Some thin wire is good for poking crap out of holes in jets. I got mine from an old bicycle control cable. Buddy got from guitar string.

lacquer thinner works as well as the spray carb cleaners and costs a LOT less. Get some plastic hoses and you can blow through the orifices and passages to make sure they are completely clear. Heck, you can blow the lacquer thinner through them. You've got 4 carbs, if the passage doesn't feel the same on all, you know somethings not right yet. You won't catch stuff like this with the spray cleaner.

also learned a trick for setting float heights today. blow into the fuel inlet and lift the float until air passes through the valve. this is the cutoff height for fuel in your bowl. Make a tool with tape ot a line of paint on a rod and you can get all four floats set in less than a minute.

take your carbs apart on a big white towel on a workbench so parts won't bounce/roll. work either carb1-carb4 or the other way around and set all the parts in the same order. make notes of your jet sizes for future reference.

use search on forum and archives, look in the tutorials section, have a good easy to read exploded diagram of your carbs, read FSM or manufacturers web site to see how your carbs are supposed to work.

Post edited by: Duck, at: 2006/06/15 01:18

Berrymans is the strongest of the dips. As has been noted, disassemble and remove rubber/plastic which will dissolve in Berrymans. The secret is to allow the carbs to be immersed overnight so that the dip can get into passageways and then use compressed air to veryify that the passageways are clean. Spray carb cleaner will not often unobstruct passageways that are plugged up... the dip softens the crud and allows it to be blown out and if you use spray at this point, it becomes effective in clearing masses of goo and such but not before the carbs are dipped. Berrymans is good because it is so strong and doesn't leave an oil residue. Gunk is pretty close to being as good. I don't much care for the NAPA brand dip as it leaves oily goo on everything.

WG-
Would be interested in hearing your opinion on some of the 'new to me' tricks. Learned yesterday morning.

1)using plastic tube in mouth to blow through passages. can feel slight differences that are not aparent when squirting carb cleaner or blowing with compressed air. "whoa, need to clean this one some more"

2)scrub, soak, and blow through with lacquer thinner. worked as well as spray carb cleaner and cost less

3)the niftiest... setting float height by inverting carb and blowing through fuel inlet. Not only does it check seal on float needle but makes it easy to nail the float-float needle cutoff height.

1)using plastic tube in mouth to blow through passages. can feel slight differences that are not aparent when squirting carb cleaner or blowing with compressed air. "whoa, need to clean this one some more"

Can't say as it never occured to me to do this. It sounds a bit unsavory... I wear a respirator mask much of the time to work on carbs and the thought of getting that intimate with them sort of leaves me cold! bwhahaha I only dip carbs some of the time now. If they are crusted externally with dried gas and oil, I will soak them. I use mild spray carb cleaner and blow it through all the passageways. I guess I know what it should look like when it comes out. The most important are the air jets and the pilot passageways as the others tend to be bigger and seldom clog up. For carbs that are not totally encrusted with goo, AND the carbs I soak, I toss them into my industrial ultrasonic cleaner (7.5 gallons capacity) and this cleans the innards about as well as they will get cleaned. Last, I still touch up the carbs with a bit of wire brushing to make them purdy. Folks appreciate purdy. I still totally disassemble each set, unlike some of the other shops that use an ultrasonic cleaner so I can clean the rusty bracket and I replace most all of the hardware with new stuff (nuts, bolts and washers, etc).

2)scrub, soak, and blow through with lacquer thinner. worked as well as spray carb cleaner and cost less

Cost less is good. The Berrymans is kind of pricey. I would first check to see if laquer thinner had any real anti-social health properties... I might look into it to save a buck. Berryman fumes probably has some real toxic qualities I would guess.

3)the niftiest... setting float height by inverting carb and blowing through fuel inlet. Not only does it check seal on float needle but makes it easy to nail the float-float needle cutoff height.

Blowing air into the fuel inlet will cause the floats to go upwards and in the opposite direction that is needed because you want them to CLOSE at the right time to allow the proper amount of fuel in the bowl. To check the seal, you would need to suction the fuel inlet I think. I have found that setting the float levels with fuel in the bowls is the only real accurate way of doing it as folks have bent the floats up to the point where they are not aligned on axis as they were when new and it makes float height measurement somewhat problematic. It can work, only I like to get the fuel level right the first time as going back and resetting float levels can be a time waster. I have also gotten a better touch and seldom need more than one tang bending to get the float set correctly to allow the proper fuel level. It takes me approximately 15 minutes to accurately set the floats on four carbs.

Duck wrote:

2)scrub, soak, and blow through with lacquer thinner. worked as well as spray carb cleaner and cost less

That's what the "Varsol" is up here.