Tech Forums > SOHC/4 Bikes

Carb Cleaning/Degreasing

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Bryan Boyle:
I have another suggestion, which we use to clean parts in the shop at the airport where I turn
wrenches part time: varsol (or, stoddard solvent/mineral spirits for those who know it by that name).

While flammable, it is remarkably less so than gasoline, having a lower rate of evaporation and fewer
Really Bad Additives than the crap you get out of the pump down at the local gas steal oops dealer.

Just a thought.  It doesn't discolor pot metal...and is a bit less aggressive than gasoline...but,
to one's health and safety, perhaps a better choice.

Just my $.02.  Feel free to ignore...:)

Zeke:
Thanks for the suggestions, all.  I agree that it's nice to avoid your bare hands in gas, but I don't do this for a living.  Still, I may just have to find a gallon of that to try in my degreasing can...

Terry, I was just talking to my workmate with the bead blaster -- he says that you'd really have to plug the holes tight not to get the glass in everything.  With the non-removable felt seals and o-ring surfs, I was wondering if you had tried this and what your opinion is?  Sure, I can wash and blow out all the channels when it's finished but I don't really have a good feel for what the blasting might do if I'm not careful.

That aluminum crankcase paint could be a good solution to a uniform color -- is any of that high-temp paint resistant to gas?

Thanks,

Todd

Terry in Australia:
G'Day Todd, to bead blast your carbs you'll need to strip them completely, so any O rings etc will have to be removed. (What felt seals?) I actually made one set of carbs out of two because I'd busted off one of the float pivot towers in my carbs, (trying to tap out a recalcitrant pivot pin) and I had another set with badly rusted chrome bits, so I stripped them down to the smallest piece (having a parts manual is pretty important), and bead-blasted the castings unmercifully.

I didin't bother plugging or masking anything, I just let it rip, so the end result was that I took everything back to clean virgin alloy. I then washed the castings in warm soapy water, blew out all the orifices with lots of shop air, dried them in my old drying cabinet (or the wifes oven if she's out :-) and then sprayed them with WD40 to stop any corrosion and provide a little lubrication.

I'd bought new carb kits a couple of years ago (in fact, 6 years ago when I bought the K3) so I took the opportunity to install them, then I carefully re-adjusted and re-assembled everything, after polishing the float bowls and carb tops and replacing all the rubber hoses, I "bench synched" them, and refitted them on the K3 with some new stainless hose clamps that I bought at my local hardware store because I didn't have new inlet rubber boots and mine had gone hard and crappy.

I'll buy new boots eventually, but as it's not sucking air at the moment, there's no rush. Re: painting your carbs, I've gone off that since the tragedy that befell my most beautiful F2, (in my "I'm as mad as hell" post) it wasn't necessarily the gas, but probably the additive I used, either way, I don't recommend painting them any more. Here's a pic of the finished K3 carbs before I refitted them. Cheers, Terry. 8)

R. Hykawy:
Terry, just wondering how the wife cooks things with you useing the oven all the time for parts?LOL Richard

Zeke:
Hi Terry:

Thanks for the good info.  And I gotta say, you have to love this new forum, eh?

So much easier to use that the good old forum.  It's like a good 'ol SOHC versus a steam engine, yeah?

I was getting ready to bag the idea of blasting and just live with imperfection, but that pic of your carbs looks great!!

I have both an official honda manual and a clymer -- and my carbs are completely disassembled -- I just put the exterior parts back together for the blasting.  And, I bought 4 honda rebuild kits for the a$$-raping sum of $140 US!!!  So I'm trying to do it right.  At this point, I'm wishing I had bought one of those rebuilt sets from ebay, but where's the fun in that? ;)

Have a look at my seals:

http://www.toddbrake.com/cycle/carb3.jpg

Notice that the seal on the choke shaft (lower one) is not rubber -- maybe not felt, but it's fabric of some kind.

Here's the rundown on the seals:

All 6 choke seals are fabric.  I'm missing two of them (somehow during cleaning)...

Of the 6 throttle shaft seals, only two are felt.  The inner 4 (on carbs 2&3, go figure.) are rubber.  The end two are again, felt.
Luckily, I'm not missing any of these.

Were you able to remove your seals from these locations, or is it possible to just "miss" them with the blast?

I have another thread there regarding the replacement of the 2 missing choke seals -- any suggestions?  I'll try the dealer tomorrow but the last time I asked them about a replacement part (plastic choke arm) they told me that you can only get rebuild kits.

Thanks again

ZEKE

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