Gnarly Carbs (Literally)

I don't know how I missed these, but I don't believe I've posted them before.

A few months ago (okay... almost a year) I was rebuilding lots of sets of carbs when I came across these beauties:

Pretty gross right? That mayonnaise looking stuff is most likely aluminum oxide caused by who knows what. I never confirmed, but the PO said something about 'It looks like someone tried to [unsuccessfully] hide some meth in there.

All the brass was fine but the aluminum bits were ruined. These carbs were scavenged for parts to rebuild others.

Protip: Soften Carb Boots & Remount Carbs

Wintergreen oil + Xylene mixed in a certain proportion
can soften hardened rubber carb  insulator boots.

Leave them to soak overnight
in the mix of 70% Xylene and 30% Wintergreen oil

The result is clean and pliable insulator boots that are much easier to install.

They should pop right on with no fuss.

Getting the carbs mounted on them can still be a fist though.
An easy fix it to wrap a ratchet strap around the carbs and front of motor.
Tighten down on the ratchet until the carbs pop into the boots and that's it.

Button everything up and you're done.
Soft boots can turn a day of struggles and headaches (and broken boots)
into about a 30 minute re-install, from start to finish.

Slide slide slippity-slide

So polishing up the slides that were on the '76 carbs didn't work out so well. I still have surging RPM's off-idle. Frustrated, I said fuck it and scrapped them altogether.

But I do have an ace up my sleeve.

I just pulled these beauties off a (for parts) set of 755A carbs.

See that scallop cut in the bottom of these? Yea that means they're more badass than the flat bottomed girls I yanked out. It also means they'll allow for more airflow, particularly at full throttle.

The best part about these is they're a complete set of matching tops and slides with no damage or scrapes.
They were a bit dirty though.

...and after 5 hours of polishing: (my forearms look like Popeye's)

The needles buffed out nicely.

I really hope these do the trick. I've been on a wild goose chase for about a week now hunting down one problem after another with this bike. This past weekend alone I've had the carbs on and off the bike 5 times.

**Update10/19**

The bike starts and idles fine, but still seems a bit slow to decrease RPM's.

I'm going to set the timing dynamicallty, then try and sync the carbs as best I can and see if that makes a difference. 

I already swapped the #115 slow air jets for #110's. It was quirky at first but eventually I got the idle adjusted and now it idles strong.

Carburetors EVERYWHERE!

It seems that I've seen a lot of sets of carburetors come and go lately. I think at any given time I have at least a dozen sets lying around.
Off the top of my head I think I've got

• 3 complete sets of  '75 GL1000 carbs
• a set of '78 GL1000 carbs
• and a set of '76 GL1000 carbs plus a box of random parts/bodies.
• 2 or 3 sets of early CB750 carbs plus a few boxes full of spare parts/bodies
• a couple sets of later (PD42 A and B) CB750 carbs
• 2 sets of XS650 carbs
• a set of Keihin CR29's
• A set of CB400 carbs
• oops I forgot one; another set of PD42 B's (Elrich's F2 carbs)
• I'm sure there's more I just can't remember.

I like to do multiple sets of carbs at once. That way I'm not wasting chemicals when I use my ultrasonic cleaner. I can just reuse the cleaner several times in a row on different sets of carbs. Because of this approach, sometimes the workbench can get a bit cluttered. Here's a little taste of my carburetor chaos.

I was given a couple sets of CB900 C carbs to build a single good set out of. I tore into them and discovered that all one of the sets really needed was new gaskets, an accelerator pump diaphragm, and a float hinge pin.
So now they're sitting off to the side waiting for parts to arrive in the mail.

This box makes it easy to keep everything organized.

In the meantime, I'll be rebuilding a set of '76 GL1000 carbs (Keihin 758 A's) So I can get my Goldwing ready for the Graves Mountain ride next weekend. These suckers are huge, there's a freakin' TON of parts and they are currently occupying my workbench in it's entirety.

Oh... just a couple spare sets laying around.

Yes the Goldwing has only 4 cylinders,
I pulled a couple spare carbs to scavenge for parts.

Like I said, this thing REALLY comes in handy.

Piecing together a set of GL1000 carbs

I have a feeling this is not going to go as smoothly as planned.

I have 3 sets of Keihin 755A carbs and I'm not sure if I can build one usable set out of all the parts from all three. One set is pretty much completely trashed; busted posts, too corroded to even see any of the jets, let alone remove them, the other set has a busted float pin post on one carb and the emulsion tube is stuck in another. I have yet to crack into the third set but I don't imagine it will be in much better shape.

On the upside I get to take a lot of nasty pictures using my homemade macro lens:

Float seat from the '75 Gl1000  carbs.

Here's a close up of one of the float seats. There's some pretty gross stuff lurking around in those carbs.

I'll get some more pics of the process once I make some progress.

*UPDATE* 9/30
Still on the prowl for some proper Keihin 758A carbs. I've had a few promising leads so if I can manage to pull that off I'll go that route and save the 755A rebuild for when I get the '75 up and running.