To clean or not to clean? Carb question - Now Finished!

[Hoomgar]

I pulled the carbs out of my 550 tonight to get the cam chain tensioner out so I'll be ready to put the new one in when it arrives.

The question is, while I have the carbs out, what if anything do you think I should do to them or just let them go? The bike runs good the way it is and the only issue if you want to call it that is if it is below 70 or so out you gotta give it a shot of carb spray to start it or bump start it. Once warmed up or in weather warmer than that it will fire on it's own.

Opinions?

[Anonymous]

Re: To clean or not to clean? Carb question

I pulled the carbs out of my 550 tonight to get the cam chain tensioner out so I'll be ready to put the new one in when it arrives.

The question is, while I have the carbs out, what if anything do you think I should do to them or just let them go? The bike runs good the way it is and the only issue if you want to call it that is if it is below 70 or so out you gotta give it a shot of carb spray to start it or bump start it. Once warmed up or in weather warmer than that it will fire on it's own.

Opinions?

If you have the time to go through them now I would say to do it for the reason highlighted above. That is not good and normal. It is a problem but obviously not a big problem. You might be able to improve your gas milage by cleaning and retuning. I might guess at a fouled idle circuit. When do you use the choke?

Michael

[Hoomgar]

Re: To clean or not to clean? Carb question

I pulled the carbs out of my 550 tonight to get the cam chain tensioner out so I'll be ready to put the new one in when it arrives.

The question is, while I have the carbs out, what if anything do you think I should do to them or just let them go? The bike runs good the way it is and the only issue if you want to call it that is if it is below 70 or so out you gotta give it a shot of carb spray to start it or bump start it. Once warmed up or in weather warmer than that it will fire on it's own.

Opinions?

If you have the time to go through them now I would say to do it for the reason highlighted above. That is not good and normal. It is a problem but obviously not a big problem. You might be able to improve your gas milage by cleaning and retuning. I might guess at a fouled idle circuit. When do you use the choke?

Michael

Every time I start cold I use the choke. Once started I can turn it right off. I have found that if it is cooler out and it doesn't want to fire with it choked I can put the seat up and cover the air intake hole with my knee and cut off enough air while cranking that way to get it started. If that fails then I just bump it.

This thing has those TK Mikuni wannabe carbs in it. They seem extremely simple and I took them apart and cleaned them out about 3 months ago. Not sure what to make of it so thats why I was poking for advise.

Does that info help anymore?

[Anonymous]

Well mark like Michael said, while they're out you might as well clean them. i sort of had a similar problem, wasnt sure what it was but when I cleaned the carbs, it seemed to help a bit

-Matt

[Anonymous]

mark if you go through them again you might find something you missed last time

[Hoomgar]

mark if you go through them again you might find something you missed last time

And so I did! I pulled the idle screws out and cleaned down through them as that was the only part I did not touch last time and the carb on the left next to the chock lever was the only one that seemed to be fairly clean and open with the screw removed. The other 3 had goo in them and required a bit more scrubbing.

The good news is it's all back together and as of 2:00 AM last night I pulled back into my garage to get some sleep


I temp fixed my cam chain tensioner good enough that i know it will hold until the new part comes in.


Thx for all the input guys!