Carb maintenance help

Hello and happy new year everyone !

Well, I need to verify that the carbs on a '95 VFR 750 are working
correctly. I guess they need some maintenance. So, I've never been close
to a carburetor before (thank you FI !). Haven't seen much helpful info
in the archive, and I'm interested in any advice or useful "how-to"
reference.
In the shop manual, it says "Vacuum chamber and float chamber can be
serviced with the carburetors assembled", so do I need to take the 4
carbs assembly off of the bike, or can they stay on to do this (I have
the tank and airbox off). Do I simply spray carb cleaner in there ??
I don't understand how to get to the jets (main jet, needle jet, slow
jet). Are they "in" the carburetor ? Can I take them out ? Do they need
cleaning ? How ?

I would also appreciate any pointers on a more general issue (for those
of you with snow outside and the bike stuck in the garage). This '95 VFR
came to me in march '07 in bad shape (lots of fried electrical bits,
toasted brake pads and discs, ...). Back in october, I finally got it
all fixed, took me a while to get it to start, but it finally did, so I
let it run for a good 30 minutes, to get it hot. Here we are, 3 months
later, I put everything back on (front-end, brake everything, new
filters, and bodywork). Crank it up .... NO GO! The best I can get is it
will start and run for about 30secs. then stalls. So, after my
frustration has come down, I take off the tupperware: I have spark to
all 4 plugs, and they are slightly wet. I switched to new fuel, and it
gets to the last "T" before the carbs, but still no go, so I'm guessing
the problem is inside the carbs. Another thing I noticed is that as soon
as I open the throttle the bike obviously stops trying, cranks slower,
and dies.
Any pointers here ??

Yes, I did check all the electricals again, side stand is up, bike in
neutral, and kill switch on "RUN" ...

Thanks for the help guys !

Olivier
'99 K1200RS Yellow
'98 VFR800 Yellow



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On Thursday 3Jan, 2008, at 4:02 PM, Olivier Gerouville wrote:

> Hello and happy new year everyone !
>
> Well, I need to verify that the carbs on a '95 VFR 750 are working
> correctly. I guess they need some maintenance. So, I've never been
> close
> to a carburetor before (thank you FI !). Haven't seen much helpful
> info
> in the archive, and I'm interested in any advice or useful "how-to"
> reference.
> In the shop manual, it says "Vacuum chamber and float chamber can be
> serviced with the carburetors assembled", so do I need to take the 4
> carbs assembly off of the bike, or can they stay on to do this (I have
> the tank and airbox off). Do I simply spray carb cleaner in there ??
> I don't understand how to get to the jets (main jet, needle jet, slow
> jet). Are they "in" the carburetor ? Can I take them out ? Do they
> need
> cleaning ? How ?
>

Woah, woah, woah. Don't be taking those carbs apart just yet (though
you're probably going to have to eventually).

> I would also appreciate any pointers on a more general issue (for
> those
> of you with snow outside and the bike stuck in the garage). This
> '95 VFR
> came to me in march '07 in bad shape (lots of fried electrical bits,
> toasted brake pads and discs, ...). Back in october, I finally got it
> all fixed, took me a while to get it to start, but it finally did,
> so I
> let it run for a good 30 minutes, to get it hot. Here we are, 3 months
> later, I put everything back on (front-end, brake everything, new
> filters, and bodywork). Crank it up .... NO GO! The best I can get
> is it
> will start and run for about 30secs. then stalls. So, after my
> frustration has come down, I take off the tupperware: I have spark to
> all 4 plugs, and they are slightly wet. I switched to new fuel, and it
> gets to the last "T" before the carbs, but still no go, so I'm
> guessing
> the problem is inside the carbs. Another thing I noticed is that as
> soon
> as I open the throttle the bike obviously stops trying, cranks slower,
> and dies.
> Any pointers here ??
>

First off, it does indeed sound like your carbs are plugged up, and
if they've been sitting with gas in them since March, it's no wonder.
I'd start with an in-carb cleaner. Here in the US, the brands to look
for are Berryman's B-12 chemtool, and SeaFoam carburetor cleaner. I
think that Yamaha sells the SeaFoam product re-badged. I don't know
what's available over there, but you're basically looking for a
witches brew of xylene, toluene, and other carcinogens.

The usual method is to drain the gas out of the carbs, and pour the
cleaner in until they're full (obviously, you'll need to reinstall
the drain plugs, and to make sure any overflow doesn't get on you or
on painted surfaces. IIRC, the instructions tell you to leave the
stuff in there for 30 minutes then drain out. After that, try fresh
gas and see what you get. If it works well enough to hold an idle,
you can then put 5-10cc of the stuff into a full tank of gas and ride
it around, paying extra attention to low throttle settings (because
those circuits tend to clog up worse).

If that doesn't do the job, you're looking at removing and tearing
down each carburetor, and preferably putting all metal parts into a
container of carburetor cleaner (it eats plastic and rubber!). I've
_read_ that hot ethylene glycol coolant will do the job overnight
without the eating rubber part, but I've never tried that myself.
Basically you clean all parts, make sure all removable jets are
spotless, and spray a bunch of carb cleaner under pressure through
the non-removable ones. Make sure there's no deposits on the needle
or its seat (use a magnifying glass!) and re-assemble.

Oh yeah. There was a guy who hung out on Usenet's
rec.motorcycles.tech forum who had fine carburetor cleaning
instructions. Use your favorite usenet archive (e.g. Google-groups)
to search for 'krusty kritter' or 'kaybearjr' and 'carb cleaning' and
you'll come up with the instructions.

HTH!
Johnj
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I just went through something similar to this with my 95 VFR over the last
couple of months.

My tags expired in July, and I hardly ride the thing in July since it's 100
at night here in Arizona. So I started the bike upat the end of July to go
get it emissioned, and it was shooting gas out of some place in the carbs.
I figured it had to be coming from somewhere between the fuel pump and the
carbs since it was under pressure. After I inspected the bike running and
not running for quite a while, I figured out that the o-ring to the fuel
inlet of one of the carbs on the left was leaking.

The carb assembly had to be removed, and only one carb had to be taken off
of the assembly. The top plate that holds the four carbs together needed to
be removed to get the four velocity stacks out. This must be done bofore
removing the individual carb assemblies. Be careful, the phillips screws
that hold the carbs to the assembly plate can be stuck and the tops can be
stripped easily.

Anyway, I decided to change the orings on all of the fuel inlet and vacuum
(I think) t's that supply the carbs. I did not adjust anything on the
carbs, not did I take apart any of the individual carb assemblies. I just
installed the o-rings and put the bike back together.

After that, fuel did not leak out anymore, but I had an intermediate misfire
below 2500 rpm. I checked for spark, it was good. I even used a gap tool
that checks the strength of the spark, it was ok. I put new plugs in just
to be safe, checked them again, and there was plenty of spark. This did not
help the misfire.

The bike did not pass emissions, of course.

I pulled the assembly off, cleaned out the carb that was supplying the
cylinder with the misfire. I figured out which one this was by pulling off
the plugs individually while the bike was running and watching the tach. I
cleaned everything that i could get at on the carb, but did not adjust
anything.

Then I put the bike back together and still had the misfire. I decided that
i would take the carb assembly in to a shop and have it professionally
cleaned. This cost $140 including new needles. I can't rember if they
replaced the seats, too. They adjusted the carbs to the factory specs.

I put the bike back together and it still failed the emissions test.

I then brought the bike in and had the shop sync the carbs, which I have
been told is a major pain on these bikes.

After that, it passed with flying colors. I put it in the garage and
haven't used it since. I suppose I should go start it up and ride it
tomorrow. Too many toys. I guess that's a good problem to have.

On Jan 3, 2008 8:34 PM, John Johnson wrote:

>
> On Thursday 3Jan, 2008, at 4:02 PM, Olivier Gerouville wrote:
>
> > Hello and happy new year everyone !
> >
> > Well, I need to verify that the carbs on a '95 VFR 750 are working
> > correctly. I guess they need some maintenance. So, I've never been
> > close
> > to a carburetor before (thank you FI !). Haven't seen much helpful
> > info
> > in the archive, and I'm interested in any advice or useful "how-to"
> > reference.
> > In the shop manual, it says "Vacuum chamber and float chamber can be
> > serviced with the carburetors assembled", so do I need to take the 4
> > carbs assembly off of the bike, or can they stay on to do this (I have
> > the tank and airbox off). Do I simply spray carb cleaner in there ??
> > I don't understand how to get to the jets (main jet, needle jet, slow
> > jet). Are they "in" the carburetor ? Can I take them out ? Do they
> > need
> > cleaning ? How ?
> >
>
> Woah, woah, woah. Don't be taking those carbs apart just yet (though
> you're probably going to have to eventually).
>
> > I would also appreciate any pointers on a more general issue (for
> > those
> > of you with snow outside and the bike stuck in the garage). This
> > '95 VFR
> > came to me in march '07 in bad shape (lots of fried electrical bits,
> > toasted brake pads and discs, ...). Back in october, I finally got it
> > all fixed, took me a while to get it to start, but it finally did,
> > so I
> > let it run for a good 30 minutes, to get it hot. Here we are, 3 months
> > later, I put everything back on (front-end, brake everything, new
> > filters, and bodywork). Crank it up .... NO GO! The best I can get
> > is it
> > will start and run for about 30secs. then stalls. So, after my
> > frustration has come down, I take off the tupperware: I have spark to
> > all 4 plugs, and they are slightly wet. I switched to new fuel, and it
> > gets to the last "T" before the carbs, but still no go, so I'm
> > guessing
> > the problem is inside the carbs. Another thing I noticed is that as
> > soon
> > as I open the throttle the bike obviously stops trying, cranks slower,
> > and dies.
> > Any pointers here ??
> >
>
> First off, it does indeed sound like your carbs are plugged up, and
> if they've been sitting with gas in them since March, it's no wonder.
> I'd start with an in-carb cleaner. Here in the US, the brands to look
> for are Berryman's B-12 chemtool, and SeaFoam carburetor cleaner. I
> think that Yamaha sells the SeaFoam product re-badged. I don't know
> what's available over there, but you're basically looking for a
> witches brew of xylene, toluene, and other carcinogens.
>
> The usual method is to drain the gas out of the carbs, and pour the
> cleaner in until they're full (obviously, you'll need to reinstall
> the drain plugs, and to make sure any overflow doesn't get on you or
> on painted surfaces. IIRC, the instructions tell you to leave the
> stuff in there for 30 minutes then drain out. After that, try fresh
> gas and see what you get. If it works well enough to hold an idle,
> you can then put 5-10cc of the stuff into a full tank of gas and ride
> it around, paying extra attention to low throttle settings (because
> those circuits tend to clog up worse).
>
> If that doesn't do the job, you're looking at removing and tearing
> down each carburetor, and preferably putting all metal parts into a
> container of carburetor cleaner (it eats plastic and rubber!). I've
> _read_ that hot ethylene glycol coolant will do the job overnight
> without the eating rubber part, but I've never tried that myself.
> Basically you clean all parts, make sure all removable jets are
> spotless, and spray a bunch of carb cleaner under pressure through
> the non-removable ones. Make sure there's no deposits on the needle
> or its seat (use a magnifying glass!) and re-assemble.
>
> Oh yeah. There was a guy who hung out on Usenet's
> rec.motorcycles.tech forum who had fine carburetor cleaning
> instructions. Use your favorite usenet archive (e.g. Google-groups)
> to search for 'krusty kritter' or 'kaybearjr' and 'carb cleaning' and
> you'll come up with the instructions.
>
> HTH!
> Johnj
> _______________________________________________
> vfr mailing list
> vfr@xxxxxx
> For subscription and delivery options:
> https://lists.cs.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vfr
>

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It might help, if I could find the instructions... Maybe I'm just not
qualified to search usenet, but after literally hours of sifting
through all sorts of amusing nonsense (some of which was about bikes),
all I had to show for it was several dozen instances of him telling
people to google on his email, +idle and +jets! FFS, how about a
bloody link!

(Okay, yes, I did also find various reiterations and snippets on the
topic, which I could if absolutely necessary assemble into a
comprehensive set of "instructions", but at this point I'm out of
energy!)


Ciao,

JZH
London, UK
www.vsource.org

On Jan 3, 2008 7:34 PM, John Johnson wrote:
>
> Oh yeah. There was a guy who hung out on Usenet's
> rec.motorcycles.tech forum who had fine carburetor cleaning
> instructions. Use your favorite usenet archive (e.g. Google-groups)
> to search for 'krusty kritter' or 'kaybearjr' and 'carb cleaning' and
> you'll come up with the instructions.
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> It might help, if I could find the instructions... Maybe I'm just not
> qualified to search usenet, but after literally hours of sifting
> through all sorts of amusing nonsense (some of which was about bikes),
> all I had to show for it was several dozen instances of him telling
> people to google on his email, +idle and +jets! FFS, how about a
> bloody link!

http://groups.google.nl/group/rec.mo...ad/thread/4ebc
c1eebdeb9880/18c8a41c0f61d2ba?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=%22krusty+kritter%22+%22carb+c
leaning%22#18c8a41c0f61d2ba

http://groups.google.nl/group/rec.mo...ad/thread/b9e3
06bcdab3cf13/78dfe9deb95d8f35?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=%22krusty+kritter%22+%22carb+c
leaning%22#78dfe9deb95d8f35

Gijs

throttlemeister sport-touring eu
afterburn crashdot com

http://www.sport-touring.eu
http://www.crashdot.com

R1100S "Thumper"
_____

"Why geeks like UNIX: unzip, strip, touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, more,
yes, fsck, fsck, fsck, umount, sleep."




_____________ NOD32 EMON 2765 (20080104) information _____________

This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system
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On Friday 4Jan, 2008, at 8:24 AM, vfr-list wrote:

>> It might help, if I could find the instructions... Maybe I'm just
>> not
>> qualified to search usenet, but after literally hours of sifting
>> through all sorts of amusing nonsense (some of which was about
>> bikes),
>> all I had to show for it was several dozen instances of him telling
>> people to google on his email, +idle and +jets! FFS, how about a
>> bloody link!
>
> http://groups.google.nl/group/rec.mo...browse_thread/
> thread/4ebc
> c1eebdeb9880/18c8a41c0f61d2ba?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=%22krusty+kritter%22+%
> 22carb+c
> leaning%22#18c8a41c0f61d2ba
>
> http://groups.google.nl/group/rec.mo...browse_thread/
> thread/b9e3
> 06bcdab3cf13/78dfe9deb95d8f35?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=%22krusty+kritter%22+%
> 22carb+c
> leaning%22#78dfe9deb95d8f35
>
> Gijs
Thanks Gijs!

This thread has a bit about the 'hot antifreeze' option as well:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.m...browse_thread/
thread/9a54575580b8bd22/6b56d36d65c0d726?hl=en&lnk=st&q=(carburetor+OR
+clean+AND+Berryman)+group%3Arec.motorcycles.tech+author%3Akrusty
+author%3Akritter#6b56d36d65c0d726

later,
Johnj

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Thanks, Gijs. Ironically, I had seen both of those threads during my
trawl, but none seemed to be the complete "instructions" I was
expecting to find. So, he's right: he HAS written the same thing
about a 100 times...each time a bit differently!

Ciao,

JZH
London, UK
www.vsource.org

On Jan 4, 2008 8:35 AM, John Johnson wrote:
>
> On Friday 4Jan, 2008, at 8:24 AM, vfr-list wrote:
>
> >> It might help, if I could find the instructions... Maybe I'm just
> >> not
> >> qualified to search usenet, but after literally hours of sifting
> >> through all sorts of amusing nonsense (some of which was about
> >> bikes),
> >> all I had to show for it was several dozen instances of him telling
> >> people to google on his email, +idle and +jets! FFS, how about a
> >> bloody link!
> >
> > http://groups.google.nl/group/rec.mo...browse_thread/
> > thread/4ebc
> > c1eebdeb9880/18c8a41c0f61d2ba?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=%22krusty+kritter%22+%
> > 22carb+c
> > leaning%22#18c8a41c0f61d2ba
> >
> > http://groups.google.nl/group/rec.mo...browse_thread/
> > thread/b9e3
> > 06bcdab3cf13/78dfe9deb95d8f35?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=%22krusty+kritter%22+%
> > 22carb+c
> > leaning%22#78dfe9deb95d8f35
> >
> > Gijs
> Thanks Gijs!
>
> This thread has a bit about the 'hot antifreeze' option as well:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/rec.m...browse_thread/
> thread/9a54575580b8bd22/6b56d36d65c0d726?hl=en&lnk=st&q=(carburetor+OR
> +clean+AND+Berryman)+group%3Arec.motorcycles.tech+author%3Akrusty
> +author%3Akritter#6b56d36d65c0d726
>
> later,
> Johnj
>
>
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Hey all,

Thanks for all the info! I'm quite relieved to see that I may not have
to get the carbs into pieces to get this bike running. Then again, I
actually might have to: I just dropped a spray can push button into carb
#2 and it fell right through the carb onto the valve stem (from what I
can see). So, now I have to at least get the carb assembly off the bike
:-( ...

I'm gonna let it rest overnight and deal with that this week-end. Thanks
for the help guys ! I'll keep you posted.

Olivier
'99 K1200RS Yellow
'98 VFR800 Yellow


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I'm gonna let it rest overnight and deal with that this week-end. Thanks
for the help guys ! I'll keep you posted.



Me too.
Have a low rpm stumble on the Pegaso that is probably related to a
clogged pilot jet.
Oddly, it's a single cylinder motor with two carbs.
So, gonna pull them. Clean them and see what happens.
Raining all weekend anyway. 8)

JohnA
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