Store bought gauge? We don't need no steeenkin' store bought gauge, haha! You could indeed make one from crap laying around the house, yo. And, if you spend more than a buck or two (for the hose, for instance), you went over budget, young feller. You'll need a length of hose, clear is best, but I had translucent green on hand that worked ok. The idea is to have a low point loop of hose with a liquid medium serving as the gauge, the ends of the hose attached to your carbs.
So, here's it is:
I used trans fluid. Oil works fine too. You need something kinda syrupy that won't shoot up into your engine too fast before you could even get a chance to mess with the balancer screw (if your carbs are so outta synch as mine were). Just make sure it's something that won't fuck up your engine if it shoots up in there, as some surely will. Anyways, stick one end of the hose into the quart of whatever you're gonna use, suck on the other end until a foot or so gets drawn into the tube, and there's your gauge.
Anyways, here's it in action:
One point of reference, you don't necessarily have to have the fluid dead center at the low point of the loop before you could start balancing your carbs. Just make sure it's somewhere around there. The idea is that you know when you've hit the sweet spot with the synching when the fluid doesn't move in either direction.
So, here's it is:
I used trans fluid. Oil works fine too. You need something kinda syrupy that won't shoot up into your engine too fast before you could even get a chance to mess with the balancer screw (if your carbs are so outta synch as mine were). Just make sure it's something that won't fuck up your engine if it shoots up in there, as some surely will. Anyways, stick one end of the hose into the quart of whatever you're gonna use, suck on the other end until a foot or so gets drawn into the tube, and there's your gauge.
Anyways, here's it in action:
One point of reference, you don't necessarily have to have the fluid dead center at the low point of the loop before you could start balancing your carbs. Just make sure it's somewhere around there. The idea is that you know when you've hit the sweet spot with the synching when the fluid doesn't move in either direction.
