Thank you for the quick reply.

I had to give up for today.

I did manage to loosen all the clamps (all 8+4 clamps wiggle - I used a very long screwdriver for the middle ones) but to no avail. It wouldn't budge - it's really stuck tight! I even stood behind the fuel tank and pulled at it while my better half tried to pry it open from below.

Will spraying WD40 all around the boots be detrimental somehow (for the rubber or anything in the vicinity/below?). Or is there another product that will work? A blow dryer will be difficult since I'm doing the work on the street in an appartment block but I could imagine it would loosen it a bit.

Anything I can do? I used all the force I have. On Thursday I'll try again but I can't see how it would magically pop off this time.

Could I have forgotten to loosen a bolt or something? It's only the clamps that hold the Carb on the engine right?

I took off the fuel cable, the air house, the choke and slackened the throttle cables as instructed by the service manual (I haven't taken off the air bent tubes yet but there's a lot of freeplay there).

You say replace them? What do you mean by 'them'? The clamps?

Thanks!

 

Hey there, replace the boots themselves. They are made of rubber and are sure to be hard and brittle after all these years. Plus all the tugging it takes to get them off can create crakes in them which will only cause more issues.
You are correct, the boots are the only thing holding them fast to the engine.
WD40 won't really help that much I don't think as it really doesn't penetrate all that well. The only damage it will cause is creating somewhat of a mess. But that can be cleaned up.
I think the trick will be getting the boots heated up. Aside from a hair dryer, maybe a small propane torch and directing the flame trough a conduit like a length of pipe. You don't want the flame near all the rubber in the area.
If you can somehow get heat to the boots, I am believe you will have much better luck.
Don't give up, they will come off eventually. There are several of on here that would have sworn there was no way they would come off, until they finally broke free.

 

I presume you mean the air intake rubbers, between the carbs and the air box with the filter in.

These will need to come off first to get enough room to remove the carbs.

Once you've removed these, use the handle of your hammer to pry the carbs off from one side, then the other.

 

Have you loosened the bolts holding the Airbox? Makes Carb removal MUCH easier.

 

Thank you for your answers (and support). Means a lot! I'll give it another go tomorrow and I'll try to bring a dry blower.

I'll try the 'from one side, then the other' approach.
The air intake is off. It's the two tubes under the carb, but there's a lot of slack here and they are definitely not holding it in place

Yes, there's a good clearance on the airbox. The Airbox can move fairly freely actually, i guess it's because of it being plastic/rubber.

I can pull the airbox further back (and off the carb completely) than depicted below.

 

My god! I finally got it off. I was just about to give up after i snapped one of my hammers on it. What worked was trying to pry it open from one side (the side that wiggled the most) and then just use a lot of force. Once it was out of one boot I could work on the others.

As you can see, however, two of the boots came off with it. The rubber (if it is rubber) is pretty hard but there's no cracks.
I hope re-installing it won't be such a labour as well. I'll try using lots of vaseline.



In one of the chambers it looks quite clean. I have to admit, I was hoping it would be visibly clogged up. There's a smell of gas and it looks like there's gas in the left jet.


Quick edit:
Ahh major problem. Wanted to look inside the float chamber real quick but, at a risk of sounding like the weakest man on these forums, the float chamber screws are really tight and I almost stripped one of them. I managed to get one off but I'm afraid I'll ruin the head on the others. Any tips? Heat? A hammer?
I'm using WD40 and have a number of different screwdrivers, but the one that came with the bike seem to be the best fit. So perhaps another screwdriver..

 

Congrats on getting the carbs removed. I still recommend getting new boots. They won't be any less stiff when you reinstall them. Plus you will likely have a similar experience if you every have to pull the carbs again.
To loosen the carb bowl screw, try this. Place the largest screw driver you have in the screw head. Then take a hammer and lightly rap on the top of the screw driver handle. You want to use short, light raps instead of big heavy blows with the hammer. While doing this you can also apply even loosening pressure on the screw driver.
You can also try actually tightening the screw just a bit. Sometimes that will break the corrosion that is holding it tight.

 

New rubber boots would be on my shopping list if I was you, as Hamlin suggested.

Also a +1 on the tighten the screws slightly first, from your picture you can see where the screwdriver has slipped and smoothed the slots. However the side used to tighten looks OK, so maybe that will just break it loose enough for you to undo it.

Once you've got them out, it would also be a good idea to replace the damaged screws as well

 

I got the screws loosened! Thanks for the tips. I'm actually making progress now.

I encountered an odd piece of foam in the chamber opposite to the float chamber. I wonder how it got there. It looked a bit burnt:





Now, before I do anything silly I wanted to make sure how this Carburetor Cleaner works. Right now (on the picture below) I still have two boots on and a lot of tubes connected. I didn't want to take it all apart so to make it easier.

Would it be safe to spray the rail with the carburetors on as is on the picture? Or will it ruin the rubber?

I removed the small o-rings from the mixture screws. I stripped the carb according to the manual.



Also, I am keeping the jets in glasses filled with carburetor cleaner. Yay or nay?

 

That foam looks like the same kind of foam that is in the small air box from the breather under the right side of the tank. That orange colored foam breaks down big time.