Gonna rebuild my first set of carbs...HELP!

[turd furguson]

Hey guys I just bought my first bike not too long ago. "80 GS550E but now it's running a little wierd.....took it to a friend of mine who works on bikes and after a once over he said the jets needed to be rebuilt. Just got the rebuild kits for each carb.....but I was wondering is this something that I can do or should I leave it to a professional. Now I do have dirt bike knowledge and I do ALL my own car work so I am not mechanically hadicapped.....oh yeah and I have a brand new Haynes repair manaul too. So should I do it or not? Thanks in advance!

[SqDancerLynn1]

If you haven't found it yet check the forum carb cleanup http://www.thegsresources.com/gs_carbrebuild.htmseries

[Jethro]

No problem. It's really just a matter of taking them 100% apart, soaking the metal parts (only the metal parts) in carb dip, spraying out all the passages with compressed air, reassembling with your kits, bench synching, mounting on the bike, then vaccum synching the carbs. It's an easy job for the mechanically inclined using the carb cleanup series Lynn posted above.

[GSstiny]

I just did my VM carbs this week. Ive done several other (car, truck, tractor etc) carbs but no motorcycle. All in all they arent especially complicated or hard to work on, just be sure you count how many turns out hte adjuster screws are before you take them out.

BTW, I have to ask, where are you from? When I saw your name I immediately thought of a security guard that worked the dorm where my friend used to live. "turd ferguson" is what we always called him, and he was a car fanatic. Separated at birth, maybe? :-D

[tcsanadi]

Where did you purchase the rebuild kits from and aprox how much?

[stp1stp]

What's bench synching? And how do you do this?

[Billy Ricks]

What's bench synching? And how do you do this?

Use a piece of thin guage wire with a good smooth tip on it. Use the throttle stop to adjust number 3 carb so the wire just slides through the opening at the bottom of the throttle plate with a slight resistance. Then use the individual adjusters on the other three carbs to match.

[turd furguson]

Heres where I found 'em.

I found the kits @:http://www.crc2onlinecatalog.com/carb_kits.htm.

It cost me $21.95 per carb, and honestly after ALL of my searching it was roughly $2 more than some of the others but came with more replacement parts than most as well.

Oh yeah, by the way, I am from Reno NV so I'm probably not the turd furguson your referring to.......unless of course I forgot! No I just use the name because I am a Norm Mcdonald fan. Thanks for your help guys I am gonna go for it! Wish me luck.....I'll keep you informed.

[brveagle]

For $100 for carb kits, i coulda sold you my spare set of gs550 carbs...

let me know if you want them by chance

[turd furguson]

You have a spare set of carbs? Are they ready to go? If so I'll take 'em, just let me know how you wanna do it. Then I could take some serious time on my current ones, make 'em all prestine and perty.

[Tracer]

Assuming the 550's carbs are similar to my 850's cv carbs (Mikunis). If not, then consider this free advice for anyone it can help.

1. Sometimes the air mixture/pilot screws will not come out because they have either corroded to the carb body, or locktite has seeped down into them from the cap covers that were placed over them to keep folks like us from dinking with them. If they don't come out, don't fight it, just leave them there and work around them. You won't be able to dip the carb bodies, but you can use a can or two of carb cleaner to clean out all the orifices, etc. If you can get them out without trouble, consider yourself blessed, and keep track of the number of turns as others have noted.

2. When removing the float pins, be ever so careful not to break the posts that the pin fits through. You need to support them from underneath, or wrap something around both posts. I've used some thin wire. Perhaps a tie strap would work. My bike came with #2 carb's post broken and JB welded back on. Then when rebuilding a second set of carbs, I broke #2's post as well. Same place, same angle. Recently a set of 850 carbs sold on ebay because the owner broke (you guessed it) the #2 post. I repaired mine by grinding the broken edges flat, and then drilling and tapping both ends to fit a small screw. The excess space is taken up with a small nut. It works fine, but it's better to avoid the grief if possible.

Good luck.