Long weekend! Sorry for the late reply. Incredibly, I was gifted a Clausing lathe and mill by a great friend and incredibly talented machinist if I dared move them.
9 hours later and here we are! Too good to be true - I couldn't pass it up. Anyways, I had some time to work on the carbs Saturday.
I sure wish I took more pictures!! Next time I do something like this I think I will set up a tripod and record the whole thing. You really can never have too much information. Anyways, after racking my brain and some past pictures I began to make some progress. The benefit of taking this things apart this much is it forces you to really understand what each and every piece does, and why it's designed the way it is. The throttle slides and arm locking mechanism is a great example of this, the choke lever another. As I was taking the float bowls out of the bag I thought "this would be a perfect time to try out that sodablaster." Ever seen anyone soda blast on the streets of NYC? It's quite a sight...
This picture doesn't really do it justice, it was everywhere and I hardly blasted anything. "Sidewalk cleaning" - lets call it that... After the blast I gave the bits a soak in some warm water.
The baking soda fizzled right off, and I was able to use the air compressor to blast them dry. For some reason I neglected to take any "after" pictures. The blasting worked out pretty well. It got rid of the remaining rust particles and helped eat at the left over gasket. I think a smaller nozzle would be a big improvement, and a better place to blast where I could do a continued stream. The baking soda didn't clump up, but it did come shooting out in bursts as the nozzle was too large. I'll shop around for a smaller size.
Everything started to click as I got the jets in.
The OEM gasket set arrived so I began putting those on wherever I could find them.
I used #1 and #2 for the jets. It seemed like there were other sizes which could also fit (#4). I'm not sure how to check if the two I chose were correct or if I put them in the right spot. I had a really hard time finding good documentation on these! It looks like the 4 #3's go on the fuel rails. #6 for the top cap (what's a better name for this? throttle slide cap?). I had an issue with #5, the float bowl gasket, it simply doesn't fit.
Gah! What's going on here? I understand that I should feed it into that channel. Even when I do it hangs over 4-5mm. Enough to the point that I cannot make it fit. Is it possible I was shipped the wrong set? On the parts diagram the gasket is shown correctly.
The top cap gasket fits no problem.
After 4 hours work I was only able to get carb #1 mostly done before I ran into the gasket issue. I suppose now that I know how to do it once the remaining 3 should go somewhat easier. I'd love to find a set for those "tongued washers" which you bend over the throttle slide nuts. I'd like to replace mine but it looks like Honda only sells them in a $100+ "Arm Link Set". Shame.
While I was in there I also made an attempt at adjusting the float height. I rested the float so that it was just sitting on the spring/needle, then measured from the carb body to the top of the float. My Clymer manual says 21mm so I set it at that. I had a hard time working out at what point the float should be 21mm...the Clymer was less than helpful. I decided to measure as follows.
A few more issues. The small clip retaining the small brass bit which keeps the float needle in place is at a SLEIGHT angle. The pictures below exaggerate this greatly.
I'm not worried about this unless one of you tells me otherwise. The angle is ~3°. The bigger issue which sadly I don't have any pictures of, when I place the "float clip" on the "float clip seat" the float bowl does not sit all the way down. It is 1-2mm off, too high.
Does the emulsifier and main jet need to go further in? They seem to be as far as they'll happily go.
That's all for now! Hopefully this post isn't too scatter-brained to keep track of, it's been a long day. Feel free to say "this is a mess" and I'll do my best to re-write it in the morning.
