Carb Rebuild: Reassembly - plus a few final touches
Well Gents and Ladies, I finally finished the carbs! I lost count of the hours invested, but I'm happy with the results. Before I could start reassembling the carbs, I had a few things I had to do, such as replace some of the hardware, and finish polishing the float bowls.
The float bowls weren't bad but it was rather difficult getting into the hard to reach areas with the Dremel. I ended up using a pointed polishing bit that came in the small kit I purchase for the Dremel tool (shown earlier in the build). It didn't get everywhere, but it did a decent job.
All done, fingerprints included.
The next thing I had to do was replace the screws that hold the carb cap and float bowls to the carb bodies. They were rusting and stripped out. I went to, what I think is the best place to get quality hardware - quickly, McMaster Carr! I went with the Socket Cap screws to avoid the stripping issue, as well as their clean look. Here is the spec for the screws:
Stainless Steel Low Head Socket Cap Screw
M4 Size
16mm length
.7mm pitch
Two packs of 25 plus shipping was less than $15! Good investment!
You'll have to get some lock washers as well because the stock ones do not come off the old screws without hassle.
Ok, on to assembly! I went ahead and replaced all the hardware I could that came with the rebuild kits. Here's a little bit of a walk through of the process I performed for each carb.
NOTE: feel free to use assembly oil on the slides, it can only help. I used bike chain lube.
Here is where the parts go with the carb sitting on its top.
All in.
This is the remainder of the parts and their locations.
Before I put the slide in, I swapped out the needles, and made sure the c-clip was in the right position. Here's all the parts laid out in their order.
Placing the c-clip on the middle slot is a safe location. It's a good starting point for tuning the carbs, and typically you shouldn't have to adjust the needle height in order to get them running right. When I pulled the needles out the first time, the had it set to the lowest slot which could have been compensating for another issue... not sure. Anyway, all better now.
I did encounter an issue with the slides in two of the carbs. They were binding on the base of the carb bore. This freaked me out at first because it wouldn't budge once it got to a certain point. I decided to take a toothbrush to the bottom area of the bore to make sure there wasn't any dirt causing the issue, and sure enough, once I brushed it out, (and with a little lubricant) it slid right it.
Here's is the slide getting stuck and not closing all the way.
After the toothbrush and a little lube, it was in. Shows how tight the clearances are.
Alright, time to put it together! Have a manual with you to help. If you don't have a manual, go on BikeBandit.com and print out the part diagrams they have on their website.
Getting there...
DONE!!!
I'm really happy with how they turned out. Now on to fire up the old girl and move on with this build!!!