So, I seem to have caught the honda/motorcycle disease so many of you have, and picked myself up another bike yesterday. A1984 VF700 Interceptor, to be exact... It's got a couple of flaws, but nothing that can't be fixed in short order (new tires, a new brake lever, rear brake bleed, new turn signals, etc). The one thing that is, however, holding me up like whoa, are the carbs. First off, let me start by saying, I will never, ever, complain about my 750 carbs ever again. Even with the 32 year old factory flanges, those things go on and off like creampuffs compared to this thing. The carbs are all mounted together with rigid plastic fuel joints and the throttle sliders, and mounted right inbetween the two barrels on the V engine, so they more or less form a 90 degree angle with the engine inlets. Fun stuff, lemmie tell ya.
Anyways, the bike started right up on it's first try, and would stay running without any problems, but the second you gave it throttle it would stall. (for about a minute or two there I thought it was because I hadn't gotten to ride in so long I forgot how to get it moving in gear) Once I figured out what was happening I decided, ok, just a easy carb cleaning is all that's needed, so I took it home via pickup. Side note - someday, I will drive a motorcycle home after paying for it....
Once I got it off the truck, I opened the idle adjustment on it so it would have enough juice to move on it's own from the road to my garage, where I parked it, shut off the petcock, and let it run until the carbs drained out. It was around this time I realized that gas was dripping from the carbs....
Long story short, got it all stripped down, and the carbs off, when I realized that one of the fuel rails/joints, whatever you want to call them, basically tubes of PVC with O-rings on them linking the carbs together was broken off right where it joined one of the carbs. So, now to my question - where can I find this part in the US (only found them on CMSNL.com, which is British)? I'm guessing my dealership only.
Now to the more important question - should I even buy them? I'm sure Honda is going to want about $10 or more a pop for them, when I could spend that much on a section of brass/aluminum tubing, cut it to length for all 4, notch them with a dremel, install some neoprene O-rings, and have a more time consuming, but better quality part?
