4 not firing, even with #1 wire attached

[knitt31]

At least you got 2 to fire! Great!
So my carbs are entirely apart. I have heard in some places to only soak them three hours,
but I can actually soak them overnight?
Bodies, jets, everything?

[Call Me Ahab]

At least you got 2 to fire! Great!
So my carbs are entirely apart. I have heard in some places to only soak them three hours,
but I can actually soak them overnight?
Bodies, jets, everything?

Sure - but NO RUBBER PARTS! any orings or seals will dissolve or warp beyond repair. Be careful about that.

Check your float valve(needle, theres a small piece of mesh that acts as a filter, mine was plugged), that's where the trash seemed to accumulate. It migrated from 2 to 1 earlier, and I nearly lost it.

I eventually tracked down the problem - my aux. fuel tank. There's no in line filter, and that gas is unfiltered - I emptied it out into a white container and sure enough, loaded with trash. Filtered it, blew out the carbs again, and pulled it apart and blew out the #1 carb thoroughly, runs like a champ. Now to fine tune the idle mix... After running about 5m at 6krpm in 4th gear, it gets noticeably weaker. When I return to idle at a full stop the engine stalls. WIll work on this more after class tonight - time to go stare at equations that mean nothing to me!

[chuck hahn]

24 hrs is the advice around here. We have all been back inside them for the full 24 hr "redo" after finding it was just a cruel joke and waste of time to do them for a few hrs..do as you wish though and youll soon be a member of the "I should have listened" club.

[Steve]

I have heard in some places to only soak them three hours,
but I can actually soak them overnight?
Bodies, jets, everything?

Soak the body, the float bowl, main jet, pilot air jet, pilot fuel jet, float needle, float needle seat (after removing the filter screen) and needle jet (also known as 'emulsion tube').

Do NOT soak the "choke" plungers, vacuum slides or any other parts that have rubber bits attached.

If you read the instructions on the can, you will see that they suggest soaking the parts for "15 to 30 minutes". I believe that those directions were probably written about 30 years ago, when there were strong-enough chemicals in the can to actually do the work in that amount of time. Now, we generally recommend "15 to 30 HOURS" in the dip.

What works well is to dip them when you will have the same block of time available for several days in a row.
On the first day, remove the carbs from the bike, separate the rack, strip one of the carbs, get it in the dip, along with all its brass pieces and float bowl.
24 hours after you started, the first carb will have been in the dip for 23 hours or so. Take it out, rinse it with the HOTTEST water that you can generate. Shoot a quick shot of carb spray through all the passages, but be sure to wear your safety glasses, some of those passages will empty out in strange places, and will shoot right back at you. Follow that with a quick blast of compressed air, set those carb parts aside.

Now you can get the second carb and its parts ready for the dip. You should already have it apart, so it should only involve dropping the parts in the basket and getting them wet.

24 hours later, repeat the process.

Repeat until all of them are done, then re-assemble with new o-rings from cycleorings.com, make your careful float measurements (22.4 +/-1.0mm) from the lower part of the step, NOT the top, set the mixture screw three full turns out from lightly-seated. Re-gang the rack and do a bench sync. Install the rack on the bike, warm the engine, do a vacuum sync, then fine-tune the mixture screws. Enjoy the ride.

By the way, have you done a valve clearance check?

Valve clearance should be done before a vacuum sync of the carbs. If you check the clearances and change any of them, you will have to re-sync the carbs.

.

[Call Me Ahab]

All right folks, my problem is finally resolved. For ever? I sure as hell hope so!

The trash kept re-entering my carbs from the aux fuel cell. Solution: Install in-line fuel filter.

So far so good, I've just finished re-re-RE-setting the idle mixture, and for once it sounds clean and strong. Every single cyl firing at full strength, engine even sounds healthier. Almost purrs, if it weren't for that weird whirring that never seems to go away... Hmph. In any case, throttle response is back, full power again, idle is great - I even went as low as I could just to see how low it would go before dying, it was somewhere around 3~500 before it shut off.

So, lesson hard learned - fuel filters. Always.

Clean your carbs and don't skip steps, be careful on your reassembly and just for kicks, put a fuel filter on that line. Maybe this will help, I was out of options when that fuel thing hit me... I cannot believe I overlooked that - as I said earlier, it was probably something really stupid. And it was - me!