TOPIC:

So, this may be old hat for a lot of you. But for the other noobs I thought I'd just share how I removed a stripped pilot jet. I'm sure there are other (better) ways to do this so please share your thoughts too.

My first pilot jet came out fairly easily. I took a flat head screw driver with a blade that was the right thickness but too wide. I put it in a vice and ground it down with a dremel so it fit perfectly. The first pilot jet came out without a hitch.

Unfortunately the slot on top of the second jet was already about half stripped when I started. I managed to get it half way up before the slot just totally stripped and the screw driver had nothing more to grab on to.

I went to the hardware store and got the smallest set of tap and drill they had. I put the float bowl in a vice (my pilots are in the bowl) and carefully drilled right down the center of the pilot jet.

I drilled all the way through but probably didn't have to.

Next I slowly ran the tap with a small T-handle wrench through the hole I just drilled. A little ways in the pilot jet started turning with the tap.

Of course this was screwing it back down into the bowl which isn't what I wanted. The trick here was to start backing out the tap while pulling up on it at the same time. With a little pressure the tap grabbed the threads it just made and unscrewed the pilot jet perfectly.

Weird. Taps are usually left hand thread, so when you insert it, it automatically tends to back out the screw your removing. Not tighten it more.

Hmmm... I tried turning it left and it wouldn't catch.

I used this same approach to extract the piston in the rear master cylinder of my 1978 kz1000 -- here is a photo showing this action:


In your case the clockwise action of the tap, as you said, wanted to spin the pilot back down but in this case the master cylinder shaft is not threaded so I screwed the tap in tight and used it to break free the stuck piston then pulled it out.

Thanks for sharing, I have a pilot screw on a bank of Mics on my gs1100 and I didn't know if the tap idea would work due to the threading -- you got it to work by pulling upward, I'll try that. My screw extractors are all too big for the tiny brass screw that is stuck at the front top of my #1 carb.

My bad, had a brainfart confusing taps and extractors. :\

I had the same issue with a few of the pilot jets on my BS34's. The PO had boogered the crap out of them during a previous "rebuild". Since I had new replacements in the kit, I wasn't worried about saving the old ones. I ended up using a small Torx screwdriver that was a little bigger than the hole in the jet. That and some gentle nudging with a ball peen worked like a charm. Probably not the best, but it worked great in a pinch.

had a guy crack his carb body with one.....be careful.

Do you mean they broke the carb body with a tap or a Torx screw driver?

had this issue this weekend...

i took the flathead/standard screwdriver i was using and put the bowl in the vice, got a hammer and lightly hit a few knocks the back of the driver to sink the head of the screwdriver into the jet just far enough to catch it firmly....then turned it the rest of the way out...slowly but surely...

i looked around thru my tools for 20mins lookin for my reverse stripped screw catchers to use like u should do most times....and could not find them so that lead this this plan above...

no drill required that time...
and that bad boy was pretty stuck in there

kinda lucky

Easy-outs are a poor name for a device that is smaller and twice a brittle as whats being extracted. When they break in a jet they cannot be ground away since the brass loads up the abrasive. I had to drill a hole opposite the jet and drove the stub out with a very small drift. By this point the jet must be drilled out and the threads replaced.
Easily go out of your mind. Easy-out. Right.

The hole being drilled or milled with a center cutting end mill must be precisely the correct depth.

A bushing must then be created to insert in the new hole c/w a replacement pilot jet.