quick question about choke flaps

hi all new member here. Picked up a 1980 kz550c1 this past week off a guy for a good price, and was going through it and cleaning the carbs out, noticed i was missing the choke flaps off cylinders 1 and 2. As this seems to be a fairly common problem, i was wondering if there was a common opinion on what to do. I live in the northeast so we see a variety of temperatures, so would it be better to seal off the missing flaps with epoxy/jbweld, or remove the remaining flaps and epoxy all 4? or just not worry about it? great site btw tons of helpful discussions, but didnt really see much about this. thanks for the time

There are quite a few threads on this if you search choke flaps (on TK-22 carbs).

This one has a link on making the flaps, and Harm had success just epoxying them shut. I personally just find ones in good condition and try to go over them carefully. In the future I might try out Harm's idea by making solid plates that replace the existing choke slides.

kzrider.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&...d=3&id=363309#363556

thanks for the reply, ill have to give it some thought here and do some looking around for replacement flaps. I had considered just making all 4 solid and using the choke lever to crack em all open a bit. When i popped the sliders out, looked like they had been broken off as the springs were still there with the upper part of the flap, yikes! Not to mention on the same cylinders with the missing flaps, the sliding choke pieces had fallen out of the choke rod piece at the top of the carb, so when the choke was turned off, the sliders were still down! plan on doing your fast idle mod also! thanks!

Those missing flaps went somewhere, like into your motor. This may be why the price was low. Its possible that it could be wedged at the back side of the intake valve. But most likely rattled its way around on the piston/ head before going out the exhaust valve. The piston, and valves could be damaged somewhat, along with the chamber in the head. Maybe a compression test would be a good start, and while you got the plugs out shine a small light down the hole to have a look.

I personally did the epoxy on mine. I had big plans to try and cut new flaps out of thin aluminum, but it turned out to be easier to just epoxy them. I was toying with the idea of drilling a small hole in the epoxy, but when I start it now I just put it at, say, 70% choke, and it fires right up. It's so nice now! Before I had 0 choke flaps, so I had to stuff a handerchief in the airbox intake to get it started sometimes.

Motor Head wrote:

Those missing flaps went somewhere, like into your motor. This may be why the price was low. Its possible that it could be wedged at the back side of the intake valve. But most likely rattled its way around on the piston/ head before going out the exhaust valve. The piston, and valves could be damaged somewhat, along with the chamber in the head. Maybe a compression test would be a good start, and while you got the plugs out shine a small light down the hole to have a look.

This was exactly what i thought when i noticed they were missing.lol. "oh boy i wonder where they managed to go". I will definitely take more of it apart to inspect, it appears that at least the valve cover was removed once before by the sloppy application of gasket sealer. The reason the price was so low mostly was because the bike wouldn't start......he had broken off the positive battery wire terminal and jammed the bare wire in the bolt hole on the battery terminal, and there was a snapped wire in the main harness around the head tube.


Thanks apbling, that's probably what i will end up doing.

I think most of them manage to pass through the motor somehow. Occasionally one will get pinched by a valve and get stuck there.

I always give this one warning since it's the one thing that gets overlooked on 550's (and other hy-vo camchain KZ's): You must release the camchain tension while installing the valve cover or you risk damaging the chain, tensioner, and guides.

huh interesting, thanks for the tip!

This topic came up on another forum I belong to and one guy mentioned of all the 550's running around with TK22's and their known tendency to lose these flaps, it's surprising that there isn't more reports of damage. I would think one of these flying around in a cylinder would cause big damage. There was a guy that thought his valve clearances were messed up because he thought his valve tick was excessive, but he found a flap still in his cylinder, but amazingly enough no real damage.

I noticed when i had removed the other "intact" choke slides that on each choke flap, one of the rolled metal loops that the pin slides through was broken, good thing i checked....don't need any more bits of metal flopping around through the motor. I also noticed that the 2 slides that were missing the flaps, had come out of the pin set up on the choke rod, so they were always down even with the choke turned off. That guy was quite lucky to have no real damage

Just some advice:
You may want to do the compression test/ check you valve clearances/ lube your ignition advancer/ clean those carb's really well, set the float level and bench sync them when there off, look at the intake manifolds as these like to crack/ seperate causing vacuum leaks. Also check your valve timing, and make sure your guides for the chain look like there in good shape. There is a measurement for the chain length in the FSM.
I bought a 1000 that "Wouldn't start", dead in three holes, they had the valve cover off and forgot the chain guide in the inside of the cover. Chain jumped and got the valves.
Its just when you first get one you don't know until its checked.

doh.
thanks for the advice, i have a strong feeling that i will be pulling the bank off again anyway, but i will be ordering a set of the airbox hoses from z1 for the next time it comes off. Seems like the bank comes off a helluva lot easier than it goes on.
I only briefly ran it after i sorted the wiring problems out, and noticed the fuel/carb issues. Ill probably put the tank on and fire it up tomorrow and check the carbs anyway, see if the cleaning helped as well as "fixing" the choke plates.