RaWarrior
Well-Known Member
Some of you may have heard me previously complaining about my bike's tendency to hesitate under steady throttle on the highway, a problem that pretty randomly comes and goes. Feels like one cylinder is dropping in and out.
After a "spirited" romp the other day, it suddenly got a lot worse. Now it was all the time, and at low speeds too. 1 cylinder is definitely cutting in and out under low throttle positions. Roll on and all 4 run strong, but cruising through town the bike constantly lurches back and forth as one cylinder fires intermittently. Annoying to the extreme.
So this afternoon I finally bit the bullet and decided to pull the carbs and tear the rack apart for a full cleaning. Getting the carbs off is pretty easy...trickiest part is releasing the throttle cables....fiddly, but doable.
Separated all the carbs and pulled the bowls off. An impact screwdriver made this a cakewalk. Found a couple things off
First, all the float levels were quite high, going by the "edge of float to circle mark" on the jet block. They were covering about half that circle. Adjusted them all so the edges matched. Second, one of the pilots was pretty much plugged solid. Third, my one cracked/repaired slide was slightly catching about halfway through it's travel. Just a little stiff spot. Gave it a light sanding which smoothed out the action.
After they were torn down they took turns in the heated sonic tank. Those things are pretty cool...turn it on and just watch crap float out of all the orifices. Every carb turned the 1.5gal tank water completely black after a 10min cycle, despite looking fairly clean from the outside.
None of the gaskets ripped or split on disassembly so I slammed them all back together without using any parts. Reinstalling the choke linkage was a bit fiddly since it will go together 180* out, but then the finger set screws don't line up with the detents in the axles. Getting the sync screws back together was a bit fiddly also but not horrible.
All in all I went from "rack off the bike" to "rack re-assembled" in around 4 hours. Rack teardown, teardown each carb, sonic clean it, blow everything out w carb spray, then air, reassemble each carb, reassemble rack. If I had to do it again I could probably cut that considerably, since I spent probably a good hour fiddling with the choke and throttle linkages on reassembly that I assume would take someone who knows what they're doing about 5 minutes. Otherwise it's somewhat time consuming but really not difficult.
Though didn't get time to put them back on the bike and try it out. That'll come tomorrow, see if I screwed up or not. I'm familiar with carbs but hadn't actually split the Vmax rack up yet.
Tips for first timers....
Use an impact screwdriver on the rack bracket screws. They're quite tight.
Label the carbs and choke fingers
Take several pictures of the choke linkage, sync screws, and fuel lines, since pretty much all of these can be reassembled incorrectly. These proved helpful when it was time to marry the carbs up again.
Fingers crossed it runs tomorrow! Hopefully this will finally kick that annoying hesitation it's had for over 3 years now.
After a "spirited" romp the other day, it suddenly got a lot worse. Now it was all the time, and at low speeds too. 1 cylinder is definitely cutting in and out under low throttle positions. Roll on and all 4 run strong, but cruising through town the bike constantly lurches back and forth as one cylinder fires intermittently. Annoying to the extreme.
So this afternoon I finally bit the bullet and decided to pull the carbs and tear the rack apart for a full cleaning. Getting the carbs off is pretty easy...trickiest part is releasing the throttle cables....fiddly, but doable.
Separated all the carbs and pulled the bowls off. An impact screwdriver made this a cakewalk. Found a couple things off
First, all the float levels were quite high, going by the "edge of float to circle mark" on the jet block. They were covering about half that circle. Adjusted them all so the edges matched. Second, one of the pilots was pretty much plugged solid. Third, my one cracked/repaired slide was slightly catching about halfway through it's travel. Just a little stiff spot. Gave it a light sanding which smoothed out the action.
After they were torn down they took turns in the heated sonic tank. Those things are pretty cool...turn it on and just watch crap float out of all the orifices. Every carb turned the 1.5gal tank water completely black after a 10min cycle, despite looking fairly clean from the outside.
None of the gaskets ripped or split on disassembly so I slammed them all back together without using any parts. Reinstalling the choke linkage was a bit fiddly since it will go together 180* out, but then the finger set screws don't line up with the detents in the axles. Getting the sync screws back together was a bit fiddly also but not horrible.
All in all I went from "rack off the bike" to "rack re-assembled" in around 4 hours. Rack teardown, teardown each carb, sonic clean it, blow everything out w carb spray, then air, reassemble each carb, reassemble rack. If I had to do it again I could probably cut that considerably, since I spent probably a good hour fiddling with the choke and throttle linkages on reassembly that I assume would take someone who knows what they're doing about 5 minutes. Otherwise it's somewhat time consuming but really not difficult.
Though didn't get time to put them back on the bike and try it out. That'll come tomorrow, see if I screwed up or not. I'm familiar with carbs but hadn't actually split the Vmax rack up yet.
Tips for first timers....
Use an impact screwdriver on the rack bracket screws. They're quite tight.
Label the carbs and choke fingers
Take several pictures of the choke linkage, sync screws, and fuel lines, since pretty much all of these can be reassembled incorrectly. These proved helpful when it was time to marry the carbs up again.
Fingers crossed it runs tomorrow! Hopefully this will finally kick that annoying hesitation it's had for over 3 years now.
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