Carb cleaning and balancing

[Lupine Lacuna]

What a difference it makes! I now have a bike that is easy to ride, predictable and smooth. Control at low speed in particular is now effortless. It sounds meatier, deeper, no flat spots or feel of slipping as before.

[mickfulton]

What bike did you do this on btw and how long did it take. I'm contemplating doing this myself but I have one day a week to work on the bike max as I need it the other six days.
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Current half-cars :2004 SV650, VX535 1991
Exes: YBR 125 2007,GPZ500S 1998

[Lupine Lacuna]

It took the garage quite a few hours in total. Had trouble balancing it out. Also cleaned in a ultrasonic bath, which we don't have at home!

I wouldn't want to do it myself, but then I am clueless. Its on a 10 year old 600 Bandit

[Nick 50]

Can I ask how much the garage charged you?
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Current Bikes: ZX7r 97 (Black Beauty), VFR400 NC24 (The banana)
Previous Bikes: Aprilia Tuono 03 (The Beast), CBR600f (97)
First bike: A GZ125 Lemon.......

[temeluchus]

Carb balancing and cleaning is an easy one to learn.

You don't need vacuum gauges, but they do offer better accuracy.
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Some shite cruiser. Now with guns and FREEDOM!

[GPZ600R]

Importantly it should be stated, the ONLY good method of carb cleaning is the ultrasonic method.

As for balancing, I have a home made carb balancing tool which is far far cheaper than buying one and due to the huge scale on it, much more effective and accurate than those tiny little manometer guages !

Anyone wants to know more, just PM me.

Jason

[Blau Zedong]

[Fizzer Thou]

Throttle bodies should only balanced after all other serviceable items have been done first.This includes valve clearances,cam chain tension,air filter,oil and filter,spark plugs etc.Otherwise the balance would need to be done again.
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Just talk bikes.What else is there?

Always have a 'Plan B'

[Frost]

You don't have to sonic clean carbs, a tooth brush and petrol does a damn fine job. It might not be a perfect job but if the carbs are really dirty anything helps massively!
The most important thing to do is to measure and inspect things like wear on the needles, holes in diaphragms, or dirt in the jets.
It's time consuming but not at all is it hard work. Getting the carbs on and off can be hard work on an old bike however as the rubbers become more like plastic

[nowhere.elysium]

[GPZ600R]

[Cheeseybeaner]

I've found just balancing the pilot jets makes a big difference for overall rideability.

[sickpup]

[GPZ600R]

[sickpup]

[temeluchus]

[sickpup]

[Frost]

Surely a sticking / part opening / not properly closing intake valve would effect the amount of pull on the air through the carb and therefore the pressure reading? Admittedly if you were in that situation carb sync would be the least of your problems
I really can't see how changing the oil and filter would effect carb sync in any way at all. What next? Pumping up the tyres?!

I always do carb sync as there's no point doing it if you might be toughing the carbs again any time soon.

[GPZ600R]

[Blau Zedong]

[sickpup]

[Lupine Lacuna]

hmm, big problems again this morning. The engine now sounds like it is barely ticking over, very deep and slow, super sluggish on the throttle, always feels like I am in too low a gear....

And sometimes when coming to a stop it just conks out and I roll at 5-10mph. Any idea why this is? Mechanic said he was having some trouble balancing - it would work fine, and then overnight it would go funny again, suggested it could be the valve, any idea?

[sickpup]

Look at No.1 cylinder.

[GPZ600R]

At the risk of sounding foolish, I would look at the sparkplugs. If a cylinder is not firing (for whatever reason) then you will see it here.
An out of balanced card shouldnt cause that much of a running problem, so I persoanlly think the problem lies elswhere.

Whip some new plugs in, that usually sorts a lot of problems out, and its an inexpensive check.

[Vincent]