Hello all,
Recently, I have began to have issues with my 95. It has a rebuilt motor as of a couple years ago. I reused the original carbs after the swap. My bike has 41000 miles on it. However, after one ride this spring, I noticed that the motor was running really poorly. Lack of throttle response, not idling, smoke out of the tailpipe. I was riding it one day and it shut off on me a mile and a half down the road, which required me to push it back home.

The motor will crank but won't try to turn over. With the inability to diagnose on my own (lack of time), I called up a local dealer and had them trailer it to their shop. They called me back saying that the carbs need to be rebuilt and that there was fuel in the crankcase.

Has anyone had this issue before with carbs? They estimated $1100 for rebuilding, fluid change, and labor. Does this sound reasonable?

 

Um, no. That's insane. Actually that's beyond insane.

 

I'm assuming the estimate is what you are referring to, not the diagnosis?

 

Yes sir. That is super high to rebuild the carbs IMHO. When I bought my bike I did it myself and had about $50.00 in parts. The owners manual came with it so I didn't have that cost. But you can download one for free if you want.

I guess it just depends on your basic mechanical knowledge and how much patience you have.

Replacing the oil and filter should cost about $50.00 if you do it yourself. And that's with top grade oil.

 

The shop by me wanted $200 a carb. $800 for all four! Crazy! I bought a single carb off ebay and downloaded the manual. I learned what to do on the one and then I pulled the carbs out of my bike. It was way cheaper, I learned a ton, and I have an extra carb just in case. I put in a stage 1 dyno jet kit when I cleaned them. I spent a quarter of the money to do it myself.

 

Okay, well I was planning on calling around to get some other estimates. I have the shop manual for it which sounds like it covers rebuilding. I'd rather not spend that kind of money if rebuilding isn't too terribly difficult. I would say I'm mechanically inclined as well.

Edit: could anyone recommend a rebuild kit? Tools that maybe needed? Thanks for the replies.

 

Honeatly you want know what you'll need until you get them off the bike and apart.
As to the kits, lots of folks buy dynojet and are happy with them
One tool that i bougght and am very glad I did is a really long screw driver set from Harbor Freight for like 5 bucks. They come in very handy when removing the carbs

 

I got the same one. Its like 3 feet long!

 

Great. I have already bought a really long screwdriver for taking the carbs off before. I guess what I don't know is what parts of the carbs I need to look at, what they should look like and what it looks like when it needs to be replaced.

 

On Youtube there us a guy called mrmaxstorey.
He is about the best overall motorcycle mechanic I've seen.
He has some great videos on carb cleaning. Thats an easy place to start before you even break out the tools. It'll show you what you can expect.