In the carb parts thread I said everything was now peachy. unfortunately, I spoke too soon.

I pulled the carbs Sunday and cleaned out the float bowls and sprayed and cleaned the jets I could remove. I did not remove the covers that have the diaphrams inside as the tutorial really said didn't or shouldn't need to.

Bike started and ran perfect when I got done with the re-assemble. This morning I go to start it and the engine was locked. Somehow, even with the tank turned to "off" fuel still managed to flow through the carbs into the engine. Either that, or the very hot weather and me having the switch to off, made some gas vapors completely lock up the engine. Not sure how that could be possible.

Anyway, finally get it started and it seems like the engine now wants to run on three cylinders. I'm guessing because one of the carbs has a bad float valve. I give it a little gas and it now wants to sputter and die instead of roaring to life as it did on Sunday.

If someone can suggest where to go from here I would really appreciate it. I need to get this thing cleaned and running again because gas in my truck is killing me and the bike is my freedom. (are there more jets and other areas to clean besides what was in the float bowl housing?)

 

My 2 cents. You need to take everything in the carbs apart to properly clean them. That means seperating the carbs from each other and cleaning everything, including the jet that you have to remove with a special d shape tool. For me I unscrewed it with tweezers then dremel'd a slot so it could be screwed back in with a flathead. Make sure elyou take your time (took me about 3 hours) and put everything back together properly. I did my first clean like you described and it did nothing. Had to go back in a second and then third time due to not putting everything together properly. I have a link to an amazing tutorial I will PM it to you after work or you can try to Google it. I believe its against the rules to link it directly here and I'm on my phone anyway. Good luck!

 

Thanks, and the link would be great. I used the photos here in the tutorial posted on this site. I didn't seperate the carbs though. I guess that is the next step. Guess it couldn't hurt to clean all the parts out in the choke circuit either.

The floats all slide easily on the pins and the valves all have decent spring pressure. In fact, everything moves and slides as it should in the float bowl area. I was surprised how clean everything was. Only one jet really had any stuff clogging it up. Once I put everything back together the bike ran awesome. Then sometime over night fuel kept flowing through one or more carbs and I'm back to square one.

Would it be easy to find the carb that needs help by using an infared temp probe and measure the temp readings on the exhaust headers? I really have no idea which valve needs help or replacing. (or maybe my tank valve went bad on me at the same time?)

 

Seems you have a float stuck.

 

Separating the carbs is unnecessary. The crossover tubes for fuel and air btw the carbs are massive and won't gum up, and if they do you should get new ones IMHO.

You do need to remove the diaphrams. If you get carb clean in them you can put holes in these diaphrams and cause vacuum leaks and prevent the cv boots from raising with engine vacuum and allowing more fuel into the engine.

The fuel mixture screws absolutely must be removed and the o rings will shrivel with carb clean and may need to be replaced if you did not do so already.

The floats are easy enough to inspect. Press up and down on them and check for smooth operation, and look at the needle tips and see if they're in good shape and not blunted. Also looking at the needle seats is important. You should be able to leave the fuel on to your bike indefinitely and not have a drop of gas go into the motor. If that's not true, you won't meter fuel properly.

What you should do is

1. remove the vacuum diaphrams
2. remove the miture screws
3. remove the main and slow jets
4. blow all jet orifices with carb clean till you see it squirt out of the orifices on the other side of the jets
5. put compressed air thru the jets and blow out the carb clean! This is necessary for the carb cleaning to work.
6. inspect floats, float needles, and the float needle seats. Replace as needed.

That will take care of what ailes you. Also make sure your pilot settings are good and that the carbs are at least visually balanced. If one carb is on the pilot circuit while the others are on the idle circuit, it pretty much will not run.

 

What JT said. Also,what does the inside of your tank look like??

 

How can you visually inspect if the carbs are balanced?

 

You can only see if they're way out of balance, but it will do well enough for it to start. You hold up the carb throats to a light source, and you should be able to see light come through all 4 carbs at the same time when you slowly open the throttle. You can do this with the idle adjust screw, but you'll have to adjust this again to start it. This is only a rough adjustment mind you, and really only will tell you if some of the carb bodies are waay out of sync.

 

Looks like new, bare metal. Practically perfect as best as I can describe. I just keep wondering if my petcock went bad, or if it isn't venting like it should. Not sure how to check that.

As far as the carbs go, i didn't remove the diaphragms. I just pulled the jets and cleaned them good. I did check all the float valves and they had plenty of spring pressure. They were all cone shaped, however they all had a shiny mark on them where they were obviously seated in the carbs. Should I scotchbrite these to smooth them back out? None of the floats were sticking either, so I am at a loss for why the fuel just keeps getting pulled through.

What I will do tomorrow is pull the diaphragm as well as the pilot adjustment screw. on each one. those are the only thing I did not touch. Will spray everything down yet again with carb cleaner and blow out with the compressor. Will also double check the float valves. I'm not sure hoow I can tell if they are seating properly. All I know is they look perfect except for the shiny area on the rubber tip.

 

Oh yeah... you know what else will cause everything to have issues...

Hooking up your vaccum/fuel lines wrong. Double check those when reassembling.