JB Weld inside carb

[dcb]

I have a broken float post inside of one of my carbs. The person who owned the bike before me did some kind of a liquid weld on it. It appears the weld job was not done very well and the post moves by touch. If I use JB Weld or Liquid Steal do I need to worry about it being dissolved by the gas?

Thanks,
David

[semerm]

?

I have read many previous posts that indicated that you should be OK as JB weld is impervious to gas. I have no experience directly with this though.

[katoranger]

I have JB welded a gas tank. It is still holding gas. Been about 3 weeks.

Allen

[speedzter2000]

Oh, gosh darn it DCB...the NIGHTMARE I went through with this same problem...Ooooooooh...they didnt "tap" out the pin on my old one...they SMASHED it out..BASTAHD!! Yep, broke it...I found out on my own, it takes a LOT of force to do that....

I ended up ditching the old carb (the float was shot, as well as the needle jet)OH!! ... the tower..and just the hassle of it all...
I got a new set of "used" carbs..

One day, on e-bay...(sound like: band camp SAME SELLER...they went for 56 bucks...2 weeks later, 130!!!!
Moral: You can do a "quick fix" for now, but wait for off season, get a set of carbs cheap and do it right. I know that JB Weld works, but that's how this whole problem started for me....
Just my .02

[ruddy]

I used JB weld to repair a hole in a garden tractor's crankcase from a thrown rod. It's still holding up after three years. I'd give it a try.

[brveagle]

I've done it before.. No problems.

[arveejay]

I bought a 650 that had the float post JB Welded at one time in it's life, when I took the bowl off it was just hanging on by the pin and the jb weld was getting soft and pliable and had let loose.

[spchips]

The one I found

I found a JB welded one that appatently had been done right because I was still good and I've had no problems yet. but be VERY VERY careful with alignment and definitly build it up some on the outsides, don't just use it like glue.

[dcb]

I have used JB Weld and put my carbs back together. I am hoping to get the carbs back on the bike in the next few days. I will post the results afterwards. Thanks for all the replies. You guys have help me a lot.

David

[bexabarr]

David, what type of carbs do you have? are they VM? I have a few extra carb bodies, I think that they are vm26??? I have to check. Let me know.

And arveejay... if yours is a 650 and you still have that problem, I may be able to help you out too.

[arveejay]

Thanks, I have already replaced the carb. I'm not going to be away and have the post break and flood my oil. I wouldn't consider it for 1 second. That's mickey mousing it in the first degree.

[Steve]

Thanks, I have already replaced the carb. I'm not going to be away and have the post break and flood my oil. I wouldn't consider it for 1 second. That's mickey mousing it in the first degree.

That's not Mickey Mousing, it's "Walt Disney Engineering".

[mdole]

I JB welded a post on a carb on a Honda Nighthawk that a one of my son's friends had. I actually glued the psot together with something called aluma weld, it was basically a metalic epoxy. I let it set up for a day then I built up a layer of JGB weld around the post and let it set for a couple of days.

I put it bak together and it workd for over a year and then the kid sold the bike so it still may be working today.

[dcb]

I have the CV carbs but thanks for the offer.

David

[sbbloom69]

Epoxy Carb Post Repair

Hi,
I just did the repair Saturday. Yes, despite my carefully blocking and bracing the post, I managed to break a post. Why Mikuni chose to use float pins with the little step under the head that gets stuck, I'll never know. The float bowl keeps the pin in anyway. I've used JB Weld as described by others, but in crank cases and other aluminum stuff. I've seen gas tanks (especially Suzukis, which seem to be prone to pitting and rusting at the bottom seam) sealed at the bottom around the petcock.

I used an "aluma-weld" knock off this time (the only JB weld I had at the house was hte Kwik Stuff). It has fine powdered aluminum mixed in with the epoxy resin. I was told by a machinist, much smarter than I, that epoxy's with metal powder mixed in better match thermal expansion and contraction of the parent metal. I don't know. When I was plant engineer back east at a textile mill, we used this very expensive titanium powder impregnated epoxy stuff called Belzona. Twice, we used it to repair the sealing region of a critical pump shaft (pull the shaft, lathe the galled seal area on the shaft, build up the shaft with the Belzona, let cure, re-lathe the sealing area, polish). The repair took 4 hours total. The new pump came in 4 days later. The repair lasterd 9 months.

Anyway, my post break happened exactly across the pin hole. This meant that I still had the critical height set.

Epoxy repair is all in the prep work. CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN. Use solvent, carb cleaner, brake cleaner, ect until you get ALL oil, gas, and old varnish off the surface to repair. I decided to give my repair a little mechanical support. I drilled a very small hole in the post, near the carb body. I also notched hte top of the broken piece. I mixed the epoxy, put it on the broken surfaces, and put some more around the post at the break to make an epoxy "sleeve". Then I took some very fine stainless steel wire I had around and wound a cinching lasso through the hole I drilled, up over the broken piece (in the notch) and around back through the hole, and then twisted the wire to cinch the broken piece down onto the post. I cut the wire close and filled in around hte wire with more epoxy. Make sure you use the slower set epoxy. The 5 minute is not nearly as strong (unless you have some of that real expensive Belzona stuff). I had to dremel out some aluminum from the float bowl, because the clearance between the post (with the epoxy and wire) was now to close to the bowl. I'm now letting it set another day to make sure it sets as hard as possible before I put gas on it.

We'll see. This only took me about an hour to setup and do, since I already had all the stuff. I'll probably start looking for a used carb body to scaveng.

I only hope the deep cleaning solves my carb problems (I'm the guy that posted that I have the wrong carbs (CV's from a1980) on a 78 GS550).

Stu
78 GS550 (with lots of stuff from a 1980)