Softening Carb Manifolds and Air Box Boots

I found this tip on the good old internet - and it works awesome!!!!

If your old rubber carburetor manifolds / mounts and air box boots as stiff and dried out, try this:

Mix 1 part Wintergreen Oil to 4 parts Isopropyl alcohol in a sealable glass jar (otherwise the alcohol evaporates quickly) big enough to get at least 1 part in it. Leave it soak for a day or more, and then remove. The rubber will be much softer and more pliable.

Wintergreen Oil and the alcohol can be purchased at a drug store pharmacy; I had to special order mine. Wintergreen Oil is commonly used as aroma therapy, and is also used to flavor root beer, apparently. It leaves a strong odor of peppermint, which stays on the parts (and everything else it touches) for a long time. You've been warned!

You can see the results here: v4musclebike.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13477

It works on other rubber parts, too.

Of course, if the carb manifolds are cracked, you still have to replace them...

Excellent tip buddy.

I'm working on a similarly aged Honda to my Kwak and the air box rubbers are still soft and malleable, just shows you eh?

Been there, done that! Don't need the iso alcohol.
Search it out here Nils Mentin had a CBX forum link:
I so wish I learned this 10 years ago, when I was selling Z1 parts on ebay.
This stuff is the best.
I tried selling wintergreen oil here and no one bought it?
www.cbxclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8753

This has been discussed here before. As I recall, harness returns fairly soon.

There was a very good article on this in 'Practicle Sportsbike' a couple of years ago. I think I scanned it and posted it at one point.
Anyway,the trick was to boil the wintergreen and soak the rubbers in it. Apparently its very smelly when boiled.I read somewhere else that you could just wipe the wintergreen on and let it sit for a while, This is the method that I tried. I wiped all 4 airbox rubbers with the wintergreen and wrapped them in plastic (for the smell) and put them away somewhere safe.
3 Years later,they are still somewhere safe.. So safe,I never found them !! I ended up buying replacements on ebay. Maybe somedy theyll turn up. As very soft airbox rubbers. Or blobs of smelly black plastic. Or maybe theyve already completley disintegrated along with the plastic bag and that why I cant find them!!!!!!
You have been warned.

davido wrote: There was a very good article on this in 'Practicle Sportsbike' a couple of years ago. I think I scanned it and posted it at one point.
Anyway,the trick was to boil the wintergreen and soak the rubbers in it. Apparently its very smelly when boiled.I read somewhere else that you could just wipe the wintergreen on and let it sit for a while, This is the method that I tried. I wiped all 4 airbox rubbers with the wintergreen and wrapped them in plastic (for the smell) and put them away somewhere safe.
3 Years later,they are still somewhere safe.. So safe,I never found them !! I ended up buying replacements on ebay. Maybe somedy theyll turn up. As very soft airbox rubbers. Or blobs of smelly black plastic. Or maybe theyve already completley disintegrated along with the plastic bag and that why I cant find them!!!!!!
You have been warned.

My buddy has a subscription to Practical Sport Bikes - great magazine, BTW. That article is what got me searching. The PSB article included boiling the wintergreen with water, but they ended up melting and distorting the rubber, too.

I have used the alcohol, and yes, some of the hardness does return - but only a little, there is still a big improvement. I have also tried soaking the parts afterward with amour all, which didn't make much difference other than making them shiny...

And I have left parts sealed in the jar for over a month without damaging them.

Where this is really handy is with obsolete parts you just can't buy new - like many of the parts on my CBX-B!