1980 GS 1100L Rebuild Carbs Or Not

[LOTO]

Original owner of a 1980 GS 1100 LT with less than 4k miles on it and I'm doing a cleanup/paint on it. I had not rode my GS in about 10 years but did start it occasionally and it was running (but cutting out)when I started the cleanup several months ago. The carb bowls had a bit of gunk in the bowls but not bad at all.
Carbs are off and the local bike shop ran it through their ultrasonic cleaner....I'm going back and forth on whether or not to do a carb rebuild with parts from K&L since the carbs are off. I can pick the rebuild kits up for $19.95 each and don't have a problem with spending the money but don't want to throw it away either. By the time I buy new gaskets, O-rings, rubber plugs I will have a fair amount into parts anyway so maybe more cost efficient to just buy the kit? The carb pic is from when I pulled them off and prior to ultrasonic.

Are the stock/original Suzuki carb parts superior to the K&L and should I just clean good and reuse?

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[Nessism]

Just change the O-rings and maybe the float bowl gaskets if they tear. Cycleorings.com sells a kit. Reuse all the brass jet parts after verifying they are open and not plugged up. This is standard forum wisdom by the way.

Carb rebuild tutorial linked in my signature. Hardest part is removing screws for the gang rail and such. An Impacto screwdriver is a good purchase for that reason. It's lighter duty that a full on impact driver but works great for carbs.

[alke46]

Take Ed's advice on this. Just contact the cycleorings guy who happens to be a member here and get the o-ring kit. The consensus on this forum is that the K&L kits are junk.

[LOTO]

Thanks for the advice and I really do appreciate it...I've read the rebuild tutorial and very good information there. The local bike shop recommended K&L and I'll take advice and not spring for the entire kits and my gaskets are in good shape.

I have the brake calipers dismantled now...the pistons were stuck and after getting them loose everything looks to be in good shape except the bleeder fitting

[mharrington]

I rebuilt the carbs on my 83 1100E. By rebuilt I mean fully disassembled and cleaned. I replaced all parts that needed replacing which - for me was all rubber o rings and bowl gaskets- I just ordered genuine Suzuki (Mikuni) O rings cuz it was easy and I wasnt aware of cycle o rings guy (Ill use him next time.) I REPLACED ALL 8 THROTTLE SHAFT SEALS!! The original seals were rock hard AND had powdery corrosion on the sealing surfaces! The shaft seals are cheap but theres a little bit of work involved to replace them. Not impossible but take pictures and dont rush. I ordered new throttle plate screws too. You will want to do that if you do the TS seals. The rubber diaphragm attached to the sliders was fine so no need to replace them. I spent about $38 in rubber parts and throttle plate screws. Bad throttle shaft screws can create inconsistent idle like I had. Never use the aftermarket rebuild kits- maybe just their bowl gaskets. My bike revs fast and the RPMs come down quick and rests rock solid at the idle RPM. Have fun.

[Steve]

I have the brake calipers dismantled now...the pistons were stuck and after getting them loose everything looks to be in good shape except the bleeder fitting

Don’t get K&L for brake parts, either. Spend your money LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT, get official Suzuki parts.

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[LOTO]

I rebuilt the carbs on my 83 1100E. By rebuilt I mean fully disassembled and cleaned. I replaced all parts that needed replacing which - for me was all rubber o rings and bowl gaskets- I just ordered genuine Suzuki (Mikuni) O rings cuz it was easy and I wasnt aware of cycle o rings guy (Ill use him next time.) I REPLACED ALL 8 THROTTLE SHAFT SEALS!! The original seals were rock hard AND had powdery corrosion on the sealing surfaces! The shaft seals are cheap but theres a little bit of work involved to replace them. Not impossible but take pictures and dont rush. I ordered new throttle plate screws too. You will want to do that if you do the TS seals. The rubber diaphragm attached to the sliders was fine so no need to replace them. I spent about $38 in rubber parts and throttle plate screws. Bad throttle shaft screws can create inconsistent idle like I had. Never use the aftermarket rebuild kits- maybe just their bowl gaskets. My bike revs fast and the RPMs come down quick and rests rock solid at the idle RPM. Have fun.

I plan on at least un-ganging the carbs and would like to completely did-assemble the carbs but just not confident yet that I can re-assemble properly..the more work I do the more confident I get in putting things back together right though and I am taking lots of photos and videos of any dismantle.

The local bike shop ran my carbs through their ultrasonic cleaner and looks like I'll end up putting a new finish on the bodies and plan on polishing the tops and bottom/bowl.

IMG_9305 (800x600)

IMG_9308 (800x600)

[LOTO]

Don’t get K&L for brake parts, either. Spend your money LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT, get official Suzuki parts.

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I will take your advice on using Suzuki parts for the brakes..in browsing the net there were many who recommended K&L parts and this is why I was considering them as a supplier. I'm painting the calipers with VHT caliper paint and picking up a Craiglist cheap oven today for baking parts which VHT recommends.

[Nessism]

K&L sucks, especially their brake system parts. Their float needle springs are too weak too and don't hold up the weight of the float when you go to check float height.

I strongly advise taking those carbs apart and replacing all the various O-rings. This is NOT difficult to do. If there is something in the tutorial that is missing just post up some photos here and someone will guide you.

[mharrington]

Looks good so far LOTO but I think you are really gonna wish you did the shaft seals. My carbs were not that dirty but it was alarming how bad the shaft seals were. It may be an expense you were not planning on but when these are replaced they will not need replacing for 10 plus years. I believe there are rubber O rings on the fuel tubes that connect the carbs too. Nice to get fresh pliable new ones in there. My bike has APE pods and a 4 into 1 and after my rebuild I did have to take it to a pro for some mixture issues. It was nice telling the Tech I INDEED had fesh OEM suzuki rubber in my carbs. He would have diagnosed the TS seals as worn and charged me ALOT to replace. BTW my mixture issue was a previous person drilled out the pilot jets way too big to where turning the mixture screws did nothing. Raw fuel dumping all the time.

[Nessism]

I disagree on the shaft seals. I've rebuilt a bunch of Keihin CV34's and those carbs don't even use shaft seals so how important can they be? Guess it's one of those long term reliability issues maybe? Such as if you put 150k miles on your bike and the shaft bushings get worn thus increasing the leak path clearance. Simple fact of the matter is that the shaft is a tight fit into the carb body and the clearance is such that air doesn't normally pass. I'm not against going for those seals mind you, it's just that about 99% of all GSR members don't mess with them and the cases of running problems afterwards are non existent.

BTW, if someone does go and pull the butterflies you will find that the screws are the locking type. In order to properly affix these screws a special tool is needed which flares the end of the screw. Kawasaki sells such a tool for doing the above mentioned CV34's but good luck finding one. I've made my own by grinding a special pointy nub as it were which I place in the end of the hollow ended special crimp screws and then I press the nub into the hole using some high leverage pliers. Failing to flare out the screws can result in the screws coming out and then being ingested by your engine. The risks are just too great for most people to justify messing with the throttle shaft seals. Oh, and I use high strength loctite in addition to flaring the screw tips as well, just to be safe.

[habsdoc]

Those carbs have to be taken right apart to be cleaned properly and to change the O-rings. The finish has been taken right off of the carbs and they will look the same internally now too.

[mike10]

It looks like those carbs were cleaned in ammonia or something that aluminum should not be cleaned in, to get that dark gray look.

I will take your advice on using Suzuki parts for the brakes..in browsing the net there were many who recommended K&L parts and this is why I was considering them as a supplier. I'm painting the calipers with VHT caliper paint and picking up a Craiglist cheap oven today for baking parts which VHT recommends.

[LOTO]

It looks like those carbs were cleaned in ammonia or something that aluminum should not be cleaned in, to get that dark gray look.

The owner of the local bike shop offered to put my carbs in his ultra sonic cleaner and I saw him put them in it....he told me that the carbs would be nice and clean when I picked them up but I wasn’t expecting them to look like they do now and my displeasure with the color/finish was very obvious. I don’t know if the carbs got left in the ultrasonic too long or what happened

[Steve]

It's probably not a matter of how long they were in the tank, it's more of what the liquid was that was in the tank.

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