Professionally clean and rebuilt carb..cant start

LarryC wrote: Float valves are very common to need replacing these days Ed. Working on a bike you've owned and maintained is one thing. Working on anything that comes through the door is another matter entirely. I'm just saying don't be so quick to hammer on the mechanic that did the job without knowing anything about it other than then carbs were claimed to be professionally rebuilt. That's a very general description and quite possibly not really accurate.

Back when they were new, you couldn't buy float valve seats for TK carburetors. Kawasaki had us dress the seats with toothpaste and a Q TIp. The float valves were part of the carb body and not available individually. We had issues with them flooding on 550's and they could be a pain in the ass sometimes. I remember those very well....

30+ year old slide needles can be worn out. Labor prices can make it sometimes more cost effective to replace pilot jets instead of cleaning them.

I don't doubt that you are correct, as you deal with far more bikes than me. Nonetheless, I have suspicions about the "professional" that "rebuilt" his carbs since he is getting fuel in his airbox. If that is the result of leaking float valves or mal-adjusted floats, I would expect the professional to have discovered and corrected it since he should have set the fuel level before returning the carbs. If mine, I would use the clear tube test to check the fuel level in the bowls and if that is not correct I would find a different mechanic for any other work I needed done to the bike or do the work myself. On the other hand, if the fuel level is correct and the bike is backfiring so much that it's blowing fuel into the airbox the mechanic may have done a fine job and the problem may not be carb related at all. Ed

Here's what often happens Ed.

Someone picks up an old bike. They take it to a dealership. IF and it's a big IF the dealership agrees to work on it, there's usually a spending ceiling on the work. So, a mechanic gets the bike and starts going through it. The service manager is given the list of repairs. He totals it up and yep...it's way over the amount of money the guy has to spend on it.

The service manager wants the business so he goes to the mechanic and says just make it run as best you can by doing the very minimal amount of work. He then blows sunshine up the owners ass. The mechanic did what he was told to do but the bike is still far from being 100% correct. The mechanic knew it from the beginning but he suffers the wrath of someone else's bad decision..... I've seen it many times.

I stand by this statement "Only a farmer can start with shit and end up with something good" :laugh:

kaw-a-holic wrote: correct me if I'm wrong guys they shouldn't the needle and seat be replaced if there is a visible ring on the needle from vibration and allows gas to pass the seat

Yes, replace. Or you can chuck it in a drill and polish the tip smooth if the roughness isn't too deep.

LarryC wrote: [
Back when they were new, you couldn't buy float valve seats for TK carburetors. Kawasaki had us dress the seats with toothpaste and a Q TIp.

I use chrome polish.....

Hey guys...I just want to say thank you to everyone who chimed in on this thread. I got the beast to start tonight and road it around for a few. The last thing I did was mess with all the floats to get them as perfect as possible, reassembled everything and then it's started. The idle was really high at first but I think I got that corrected. It seems to stick every now again tho. But thanks again for everything. I love this forum and I have learned so much about my KZ550 just from this site!

congrats!

sounds like to me the plug wires are not in the right place make sure there in order