carb cleaner

I read in one of the posts about "boiling in lemon juice". Is this an effective way to clean carbs? It sounds environmentally friendly. Does the lemon make for a slight acid wash? I have been using carb cleaner from Walmart at $2per can. Cheap but still leaves some residue behind.

I boiled mine in lemon juice a couple weeks ago. 15 minutes of boiling in lemon juice cleaned them as thoroughly as a set my buddy had ultrasonically cleaned. Infinitely better than any aerosol carb cleaner is going to do, and way more environmentally friendly than a carb dip. If you use straight lemon juice boil for about 15 minutes. If you cut the lemon juice with water increase boiling time proportionally. 50/50 water/lemon juice boil 30 minutes. You don't need to pull any of the rubber bits out of the carbs because the lemon juice won't hurt the rubber, nor will the short time boiling cause any heat related issues.

I boiled my float bowls and caps in lemon juice and it did work really well... I recommend a two part process:

1. Boil in lemon juice
2. scrub down trouble spots with a green scrubber (brillo) and then boil in lemon juice again.

I didn't boil the entire carb body, but I don't see any reason why that would hurt them.

good luck

Wouldn't vinegar work the same, and be a lot cheaper?

I guess this article answers all of our questions.
www.howtocleanthings.com/how-to-clean-aluminum.htm

MEK and Toluene are all carb leaner is and available in gallon cans at commercial paint stores for under $10.00 (twice that at home depot), but I salute you environmental frienliness. I will am rebuilding my carb bank now and am definately going to try the citric acid dip trick. Oh, and at brewery stores and health food shops you can buy powdered citric acid which is more pure than lemmon juice or vinegar and a whole lot cheaper.

So I just did the lemon juice boil. I pulled the top caps and the float bowls and boiled them. I then removed the jets and floats and boiled the whole rack separately.

They look great, but now one of the slides is stuck and the choke is really really sticky and stubborn...

Any ideas to free the slide and get the choke nice and smooth again? I was so stoked on the lemon boil until this happened!!! Thanks in advance.

Update:

I got the choke working again. I think the aluminum oxide that formed on the surface was binding up the "tracks" that the choke flaps were sliding in. I pulled off the flaps and brushed them with liquid wrench and worked them up and down manually for a while. They seem to be fine now.

The slide is still very stuck. I tried tapping the carb body. I tried tapping the slide assembly, but I don't want to try to force it and risk bending or permanently screwing it up.

Would it be worth trying to spray it with wd-40 or liquid wrench or something and letting it sit? would I need to reclean that carb after doing so? what do you guys think?

btw, this is on an 83 kz550 ltd.

thanks,

gintree

Would spray carbs all over real well with PBBlaster inside and out, and allow to sit overnight. Re-spray the next day and manipulate all the moving parts.

Blow-dry with compresed air or just allow to drip-dry. No further cleaning is necessary. Any PBBlaster residue will just dissipate while the carbs are being used. As I recall, one proclaimed use of PBBlaster is being sprayed into carbs to supposedly reduce carbon inside combustion chambers.

Good Luck!

Thanks Patton! I'll get some PB Blaster tomorrow and give it a shot.

Did you rinse the carbs thoroughly and then blow them dry with compressed air after doing the lemon juice boil? Just wondering cause I boiled my carbs exactly as you did (didn't remove slides or choke plungers, etc etc) and have had no issues with mine.

I did rinse them, but I did not blow dry them with compressed air. Maybe that's what caused the binding.