New to all of this.

I have a 76' KZ900 that I'm rebuilding. First will be the carburettors, and I know very little about this proses. Outside of what I've been reading hear, and in my service manual. But with some help from you fine folks, and a bit of trial and error I'm confident that I'll succeed. Even if it takes me the rest of the year and I end up paying twice what I could have paid a professional. That of course is not the point. Learning is fun. And riding a bike that you rebuilt yourself is much more gratifying I would imagine. I'm planning on buying a rebuild kit for them first off. Dose that sound about right? Might as well right? I would be very grateful for any little helpful hints, advice, and or pointers generally only known to those of you who are serious hobbyists or in the trade that are not mentioned in the manual before I get started. I really appreciate your guy's help with this and have already learned allot from simply reading previous posts. Have a great week friends, and Aloha from the Big Island.

Hey! Welcome!

I just got my first 76 900 and recently cleaned the carbs. It was kind of intimidating beforehand, but once I got down in there, piece of cake. Mine was leaking pretty bad as well. If it is leaking when the bike is sitting there then you might want to turn your petcock off. My petcock has only 3 settings: OFF, ON, and RES (reserve). So when the bike is parked, the petcock should be in the OFF position.

As for buying a rebuild kit, Jeff at Z1 told me I was better off just buying the gaskets and keeping the jets original. They clean up pretty easily and it saved me a lot of money. When dismantling the carbs, do yourself a favor and keep everything as organized as possible. Some suggest one of those daily pill-boxes, or a fishing lure kit.

I took the advice from the forums and soaked the carbs for a couple of days in an orange cleaner I purchased from home depot. Once I pulled them out, you could see all the crap that was caked in there. I used an air compressor and a small wire brush to clean them and then briefly soaked them a second time, and they came out as clean as new.

Little advice: Take your time! When taking the carbs apart, and putting them back together! You dont want to have to do it twice, believe me.

If you have the original air filter and airbox (not the pods), it is a pain in the ass getting the carbs off and on the bike. Try to be as gentle as possible with the airbox hoses between the airbox and the carbs. They rip pretty easily and arent all that cheap. Also can cause performance issues if they do crack/rip. There are some hints in the forums, like heating them with a hairdryer, or folding them back on themselves. It makes it a ton easier to have an extra set of hands there as well...

Congrats on doing it yourself! As you said: you will appreciate it much more, and learn something new in the process. Also, keep a couple of cold beers close by. This will help tremendously if you get frustrated, or serve a dual purpose for celebration.

Thanks for the encouragement, and the advice on the gaskets. Sounds good to me. Less is more. Ive had a tendency to to overdo/over think any and all projects in the past. In the past few years I've been learning to mellow out on that a bit. So your advice is right up my ally. As far as the cleaning go's. I'll fallow your advice to a T. Unless we don't have that orange stuff heat on the Island. If not I'll try to find something comparable. Many thanks and Aloha.

We are here to Help in anyway we can on Your KZ project. And BTW welcome to the KZ world

that's pretty cool that your asking for help and are willing to do what is needed some people come on here and ask for help and when you try to give them help they do it half way and then get pissy with the people that are actually trying to help because it didn't just happen right away.i really appreciate that you want and need to do this your self that is why i got into this trade myself 18 years ago if you listen to the guy's that have been there before you and do as they suggest you will come out the other side a winner, you will find somthings frustrating but just put your head down and you will get thru this there is a lot of talented people on here so use them and be thankfull that they are willing to help because if you where at my shop up here it would be a hundred dollars an hour for all this and i give it free hre and love every minuete of it as you can see by my post inthe last 6 months i'm on here all the time so have fun and we are here to help. that was my rant sorry about that and welcome aboard it will be great to have you around. hope i did't scare you off with this

welcome, gary...
I second Brian's advice to take it slow. Mark everything you remove. Take pics if you need or want to... it all helps in the long run... Can't really be too organized when it comes to an internal combustion engine. Lots of little, very important parts.
I would bother buying the rebuild kits (that's 80-100 buxks you could save) until you assess the damage. They may not need them. Just stick to a checklist; are your floats adjusted correctly? Are your float bowls full of gunk? is everything moving freely?
You didn't mention having a specific problem with them before, so maybe just a good once over and cleaning is all you need. There's some really good carb guys on here, so don't hesitate to ask.
Cheers and have fun (good luck too)

Thanks guys. I cant wait to get started. I ordered the gaskets today after work from my local Kawasaki dealer hear on the Big Island. They should be hear next Thursday. I'll fill you all in on the condition of the insides this weekend to see what you all think. Thanks again boys, and have a great day tomorrow.

Aloha guys. I've been reading more of the posts relating to leaky Carb's and was wondering if I should replace the float valve assembly's. When the bike is running the left carb leaks a fair amount. And when the bike is not running it still leaks a little. I thought that perhaps it was a stuck needle but now I'm wondering. What would you all suggest. Thanks guys.

I would just clean the carbs. real good and set the float level. If your careful taking them apart you prob. won't need a carb kit. Most likely if you have to buy any thing it will be a gasket kit.

I ordered the gaskets for all four of the carbs. So I'll do as suggested. I'll Clean them thoroughly and replace the gaskets. Thanks for your help.

Hi all,

I'm setting out for my adventure on carb cleaning

I have a couple question though.

1) You guys talked about new gasket. I am wondering if it is the Carb Float Bowl O-Rings?

2) If I disassemble the carb for clearing, do I need to re-sync the carb?

Thanks!

Vincent

vincentmoy wrote:

Hi all,

I'm setting out for my adventure on carb cleaning

I have a couple question though.

1) You guys talked about new gasket. I am wondering if it is the Carb Float Bowl O-Rings?

2) If I disassemble the carb for clearing, do I need to re-sync the carb?

Thanks!

Vincent

Hi, Vincent -- Be happy to help out within this thread or otherwise, but thinking you might get better more specific responses by starting a separate topic within the carb forum, and including some detail about the particular make and model of bike involved to reduce uncertainty and guessing about which type carbs.

Some carbs have floatbowl gaskets which may be re-used repeatedly. Others have an o-ring that's sometimes good only for a single use.

With mechanical slide carbs, usually a good idea to bench sync while off the bike.

Good Luck!