Okay, I'm gettin' back in on this #$%*! I have excuses for being gone for so long, but I'm sure none of you want to hear them, and they aren't all that interesting anyway.
Both of my bikes have been almost as neglected as this forum (by me), but I've recently started riding them on a more regular basis. Of course that kind of treatment doesn't go unpunished, so on my way home from work the other day my 750 starts sputtering and acting like she's running out of gas, even though there's a full tank. At the next stop light I smell gas and I know there's a leak. Sure enough one of the carbs is overflowing, and it can't be fixed by hitting it with a blunt object. I pulled the carbs and the insides are coated with fuzzy green crap, and the bowl gaskets crumbled upon removal.
To David Silver Spares I go! I also came to the sad realization (several years too late) that my carb-to-engine boots were hard as rock and are most likely the cause of the idle issues I've been having for the past few years. Even with the clamps fully closed the boots still wobbled on their perches. So in addition to new gasket kits I also ordered new boots. They aren't cheap, but you can't get a bike to run right with four vacuum leaks, so it's well worth it.
The package arrives and I'm out in the garage, drinking a beer and happily installing my new, soft, supple carb boots, with blissful thoughts of sitting at a red light without having to constantly blip the throttle to keep her from stalling running through my head, when I realize my stock clamps won't close on them tightly. I'm pissed. I measure the new boots against my factory boots, and they're all 2-3mm smaller in diameter than the stock boots.
I start emailing back and forth with customer service at DSS, and as always they have some of the best customer service I've dealt with. The rep apologizes for the size discrepancy and offers a full refund plus return shipping. Before going through the trouble of shipping something back to England, I took another look at my parts. Yes, the new, aftermarket boots were slightly smaller than the factory boots, but the real problem was my factory clamps. Over the years I have screwed them down so tight, trying to work against the age-hardening of the rubber, that I deformed them to the point that they're incompatible with anything other than the boots they're currently on or larger.
I emailed the rep again, explained the situation, and ordered a full new set of carb boot clamps. They cost as much as the set of boots themselves (possibly a little more), but it's the last time I'll ever have to buy them again, and they're far better than using standard hose clamps as I've often seen over the years.
The moral of this story is: Don't wrench down on your carb boot clamps to get them to seal better. Yes, it will work for a while, but all you're doing is destroying the clamps and costing yourself more money. Buy the new rubber boots now and save yourself some time, money and frustration in the future! I know the boots are expensive, but damn, how much money do you have in your bike already? How important is it to you that your bike runs and idles well?
