Topic: Felt choke shaft seals?

[Zeke]

Hey All:

After my cleaning debacle, my carbs are almost ready for reassembly.  1980 CB650

As I finished cleaning, I noticed that some of these choke shaft seals were missing.  I have a mixture of rubber and felt seals, though I can't remember straight off whether or not any of the choke shaft seals were rubber or not.  I noticed as I was cleaning one of them that the felt seal had come out.  I'm trying to dry it out to reinstall but it looks like the shape is ruined.

So I'm missing 2-3 of these little devils.  They didn't come in my official honda carb rebuild kits, so I'm wondering if I can get them at all, or has anyone tried to size an o-ring that will fit into the old seal body...

zeke

[Zeke]

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.

Yesterday I called the dealer and as I expected, they don't sell these
separately.  If you look at the picture you can see that they are
"semi-permanent".

As I said, I'm missing two of the choke shaft seals one on #1 and one on #4.

So now I'm forced to scramble around and try to seal this another way,
as come hell or high water they're going on the bike this weekend.

Here's a few ideas:

Find an appropriate sized O-Ring:  The shaft OD is 5.97 mm , and hole
ID 9mm (best guess as the seal retainer is still in place)

So, IF I can find an Oring OD 9mm and ID 5.5mm and can fit it thru the
hole in the retainer problem solved.  I've looked at the local
hardware store though and haven't found one yet.

If not, I'll have to try sealing this from the outside.  There's about
25mm of space between carbs when assembled.  The choke shaft in these
areas is open.  I have an O-ring that will seal tight on the shaft,
but is too big too fit inside the carb body.  So I'm thinking, push
the O-ring against the housing with either a piece of fuel hose (with
choke shaft running thru) that is slightly long so it pushes the oring
against the carb  OR  try to find an appropriately-sized threaded
"collet" that can push the o-ring against the side.

Any other ideas?  I really need to get this damn thing on the road
before the traffic makes me insane.

Thansk

Zeke

[apr1967]

Maybe you could use felt?

[Ibsen]

If you can't get them from a Honda dealer, try to call Sudco or motorcyclecarbs.com. They might have the seals. Or they might know where to get them.

[Zeke]

Maybe you could use felt?

Haha, very funny.

It's something like felt, but if you look at the picture there's no way you're going to get a piece of fabric behind the retainer.

Anyway, I don't know anywhere you can get highly calibrated felt.   

If I had more time I'd goto a seal shop and see if there's something that might work - and when I have more time I might but right now I need my commuter bike back on the road.  My gas hog little truck with higher gas prices just cost me $55 to fill and that'll only last me a week.