Carb problems - it's the little things that get you!

[Finfan]

OK, so I had to take my carb off and make a new cable because a part broke for no apparent reason during a routine adjustment. Well, since then I have found that the bike won't climb a mild grade I used to be able to accelerate up and the engine would race when I stopped at a light.

I took the cable off the carb tonight and found a minor oops. When properly assembled the needle and it's clip sits on the bottom of the cylinder with a slotted plate on top of it which is pressed down by the spring so that everything moves in unison. What I had done was have the needle clip on top of the slotted plate so the needle was capable of shifting about on its own. D'oh! I am sure this is what caused the racing engine at idle. It remains to be seen if it will fix the lack of power but the shift would have been the equivalent of moving the clip down at least one notch so I am thinking it is.

I am just posting this so if anybody else has a similar problem they might find this if they do a search.

 

[reg454]

That should fix it.

 

[Creative Engineering]

Good post FIN,

An oops described is what makes this forum great, and truly helps other members!

Jim

 

[Dave31]

I have done that several times myself

 

[Boredomfiend]

Sounds like the same symptoms I experienced.

My problem though was a blown intake gasket. Fixed the gasket, got normal functionality.

 

[Finfan]

An addendum

OK, I'm bumping this one more time because I found one more oops. After reassembling the parts in the correct order I found that I now had the same power levels that I did before but the engine was still racing when I idled. In messing with the carb and swapping parts, etc. I finally found the problem. If you look at FR31's pictures you will see the slot in the cylinder that you insert the cable through. This slot also acts as an alignment device. There is a small "pimple" on the inside of the carb that this slot must be aligned with. If the cylinder is not oriented properly it cannot be inserted. Anyway the problem I found was that the cable end I made out of solder was too fat and it was hanging up on the "pimple" keeping the cylinder from dropping back into place. By trimming the solder blob with a pair of sharp wire cutters I finally got the silly thing working properly. That first line in my sig is fact not humor. I always did have to step in it to find it!