Airbox boots not available at Z1 Enterprises

I found this last night, and it might be helpfull:

Successfully Resurrecting Old Rubber Parts
(Found on the internet)

This subject has been broached before but I am happy to report success in revitalizing old rubber.

I have been using a mixture of 30% wintergreen oil (methyl salicylate) and 70% xylene to restore old rubber parts and it works beautifully. This is the same ingredients and proportions for the commercial product Rubber Renue according to the MSDS sheets.

Wintergreen oil is analgesic and liniment for aching muscles and found in most drugstores, pharmacies, health food stores and co-ops.

I gently heated rock hard honda CB carb boots with a heat gun for 30 seconds and dropped them into mason jars with my solution for 12 hours at room temperature. They come soft, pliable and looking good. They have been out of solution for 48 hours now and are still soft and pliable. I soaked smaller rubber parts such as side panel grommets and there extremely soft and may need to soak for less time

Critics are going to argue 'why not buy new ones?' Well, I am restoring four CB's at the moment and if I can reuse perfectly good parts, why throw them and my money away?

Give it a try and post your results.

I started to say this in my last post but it was too long and I deleted it. Anyway, I've been able to get parts through bike bandit that are "no longer available" but mostly you can't. From what they told me, they check with many, many sources throughout the country and sometimes they have the parts and sometimes they don't. There's a chance they will get what you need but most likely can't if it's unavailable.

Here's a worst case scenario - you need a group of parts, like an inner and outer clutch actuator housing, bearings, etc... because yours is shot. They will sometimes be able to get some of those parts but not all of them. You might end up with parts that you can't use because the one part that's really messed up on yours isn't available anymore. (hopefully that makes sense??) :huh:

They used to default to NOT shipping the order unless ALL of the parts were available. They would contact you and see if you still wanted a partial order. Now they ship whatever they can get regardless.

if youre not in a big hurry ive had good luck soaking parts in a zip lock bag full of armor all.keep enough armor all in the bag to keep parts coated and flip them around once in a while so everything gets covered

If nothing pans out, you could get some BS32 carburetors from an 82-83 650-CSR: the last time I checked the airbox ducts are still available for those bikes. Or you could get some BS34 carbs from a 750-4 which uses the same ducts as the later CSRs. Either way, you'll have the added benefit of more power - ~5-7 additonal hp or thereabouts.

PS: I've had a set of hard ducts soaking in silicone spray for several years now - they're still hard. Someone else mentioned using brake fluid: after about a year - still hard.

JMKZHI wrote:

If nothing pans out, you could get some BS32 carburetors from an 82-83 650-CSR: the last time I checked the airbox ducts are still available for those bikes. Or you could get some BS34 carbs from a 750-4 which uses the same ducts as the later CSRs. Either way, you'll have the added benefit of more power - ~5-7 additonal hp or thereabouts.

PS: I've had a set of hard ducts soaking in silicone spray for several years now - they're still hard. Someone else mentioned using brake fluid: after about a year - still hard.

The only problem with this is he would either have to replace the fuel tank or re-locate the petcock on his existing tank. The 81 CSR 650 has a unique placement of the petcock because it was the only year that VM series carbs were used. On 82 and later bikes with CV carbs the petcock was moved forward.

In my experience "nothing" restores boots once they get hard. Preventative siliconing helps stave off the hardness but it will come and when it does. WHAM....there it is. or It is what it is. SUX.

Hi Thanks for all your input.
Looks like once the boots go hard very little you can do- unlike other things that only go hard for a while!
This is a picture of the bike when it was listed on Ebay, looks like it had pods but they weren't with the bike when I had it delivered. Still can't make out whether the seller is a fat guy or a fat girl, looks a bit like OCC Mikey.
I bought an airbox complete with boots, they are a liitle hard but maybe useable.
Thanks Andy for the advice on the tank & petcock. I have a spare 650 tank and a couple of spare sets of carbs- I have a set of Keihins from a 750 Ltd with decent airbox boots, I know that these will fit the air box but not sure whether the carb inlets are the same size.

Guess What Guys???

Had an email from Bike Bandit to say the items were discontinued, but we all knew that would happen didn't we.

I had to live with my 750's hard boots for a couple of years 'cause of finances. The big thing that helped when I was putting carbs back on was soaking them in boiling water for about 20 seconds. They'd stay nice and soft for about 2 minutes so if you have everything lined up it works.