A very elementary question.

[Chester Gunn]

I looked and looked, but couldn't find anyone else on this forum as dumb as myself, so I'm going to have to ask the question. Are there any tricks or tips for installing the vacuum gauge adapters into the intakes? My bike is a 1983 GS 650 GL and I'm having a very difficult installing the 2 inboard adapters in order to synch the carbs. I have rather large hands, so I was hoping that someone had devised a trick for doing this...

Any and all replies would be greatly appreciated.

[TeamDar]

Find someone with small hands.

[wilmas2cool]

I have put the adapter in a piece of clear vinyl tubing and used it as an extension to start threading it in in my old 850. Same as using a piece of vacuum tube to start threading a spark plug in.

[chef1366]

Use the long ones for the inside cylinders.

[LarryA_Texas]

I looked and looked, but couldn't find anyone else on this forum as dumb as myself, so I'm going to have to ask the question. Are there any tricks or tips for installing the vacuum gauge adapters into the intakes? My bike is a 1983 GS 650 GL and I'm having a very difficult installing the 2 inboard adapters in order to synch the carbs. I have rather large hands, so I was hoping that someone had devised a trick for doing this...

Any and all replies would be greatly appreciated.

Sometimes it's trial and error...trial again. I'm pretty sure I had to take the clutch pull off the engine to get mine to line up. You may have to use the long rods or the short ones depending on how they fit on your model. I think I used the short ones on the inboard carbs on the 650. That's why I had to removed the clutch...so the long one would fit on the #4.

As a last resort, you may want to take the carbs off so you can get to the plug and to help align the threaded rods for the vacuum gauge. Once they are on you can reinstall the carbs. After you finish the sync it's not so hard to get the plugs back in. I've used a small socket with allen head to help screw them into place.

[twr1776]

I got a set of these from Z1, the plastic ones that come with the carbtunes work OK but I got tired of burning my fingers threading them in. They make it much easier, before I got them I was using the plastic tube method to thread the adapters in to the inner two sync ports. I am pretty sure they have more than one size so you might want to verify the size for your bike.

http://www.z1enterprises.com/detail.aspx?ID=3262