Potential New VF Owner

I guess I should have explained further. I need bowl gaskets and the gaskets that go between the carb horn and the mounting plate. Also the O rings for the vent tubes. I would like to make my own from the O ring material. Here's where I found the kit .103 Through .275 Dia. Buna-N O-ring Splicing Kit | Fastenal If you have these gaskets, that would be great.

 

I sell a carb seal kit that contains everything you need. It's $25 with enough seals for all four carbs. Shoot me an e-mail and I'll get one sent over to you right away!

 

Got the valves adjusted today. I was happy to see that the cams and rockers are in excellent shape, no visible scoring or wear. Only visible flaw was a very small pit on the #3 exhaust lobe. I tried the DD method to adjust, wasn't satisfied so used the two feeler method, worked best for me. Only rocker that was out of spec was #1 intake, it checked out at .003. Thanks to someone who mentioned that a square headed deck screw would fit the adjuster screws, made a tool that works just great.

 

Good news on the cams and rockers and thanks for the feedback on the valve lash techniques.

BTW, a great looking tool you have there - love the ingenuity!

 

Need some more help. I am attempting to adjust the float levels in the carbs and am somewhat confused (what's new?) about where to measure from and to in order to obtain the correct float level. Is the measurement from the gasket surface of the bowl to the bottom of the float ??? My Clymer manual says to "measure from the carburetor body to the float arm". Not sure how to interpret that.

 

Got another fuel problem. Before I pulled the carbs, # 4 carb was leaking, I assumed it was the float valve. Got everything back together today (you guys are right, splitting the carbs apart for cleaning and reassembling is a major PITA) and in an unusual flash of forethought, bench tested for leaks before installing the assembly. I rigged a hose and funnel and filled the carbs and much to my dismay # 4 was still seeping fuel, appeared to be coming out around the bottom side of the bowl. Pulled the bowl and after some head scratching discovered that the bottom side of the bowl flange is warped and is not sealing. Does anyone have a spare bowl that they are willing to part with?

 

Paging IC.

 

I will check the parts bin tomorrow - I should be able to help out with this.

 

IC - I couldn't remember if I threw in some of the bowls from the loose carbs when I shipped the good ones to you. If I didn't then I tossed them which is now a shame.

BTW - I kept one of the loose carb bodies to ship you for "research". I will get around to packing it up one day. Can you PM your address again?

 

I think I have two spare bowls. Have to check the parts bin tomorrow.

Good deal on the throttle body - thx! I will shoot you a PM in a bit.

 

Well gentlemen, I stopped the leak. I used a slightly thicker O ring for the bowl gasket and no leak. I'm not sure I want trust it as the bowl flange is defniitely warped. When I lay a straightedge o the flange, I can slip a .004 feeler under it, the gap is centered between the screw holes and tapers to nothing at the screws. IC...if you have a bowl, that will be great.

 

Hi creaky, I checked the spare carburetor parts that I received from Michael E but unfortunately there are no extra float bowls. I do have two extra vacuum caps in good condition (only minor pitting on the chrome) if you need them.

Hopefully the larger o-ring size will do the trick while you source a replacement.

Wish I could be of more help...

 

if it's only .004" you could put a large piece of fine grit emory cloth on a nice flat surface and lap it.

I highly doubt taking .004-.007" off the matting surface would hurt anything. I'm pretty sure there is more clearance than that inside the bowl.

it would also give you a little more exposed oring to conform to any other deformities on the throttle body base.

 

I agree with the lapping. Did you check the mating surface on the carb to see if it has somehow warped too? I am curious how this would have happened in the first place...

 

ic.....thanks for trying. Good idea on the lapping, I'll give it a try. I am at a loss also as to how the bowl flange would warp in the 1st place. The other 3 bowls are OK. I did check the mating flanges on all 4 carbs, they are OK.

 

Well....after inspecting the carb bowl, I decided that the protrusions (guides) on the screw holes would prevent lapping the flange surface. I used a very fine flat file and gingerly filed the flange flat and reinstalled it with the standard O ring, no leak. So I went for broke, installed the carb assembly, rigged a temporary gravity feed fuel bottle. Applied the choke, hit the starter button, cranked about 5 seconds, the engine fired right up, sounds great. It smoked for a few minutes, but cleared up completely after about 10 minutes running. It idles smoothly, no mechanical noises. When I removed the carb assembly some days ago, the boots were very hard and not pliable at all. I googled how to soften rubber and the popular methods were soaking in either auto transmission stopleak or silicone solution of the type that you waterproof tents with. I had some silicone solution, so several days ago I placed the boots in a ziplock full of the silicone. When I took them out today, they are very pliable, probably not as much as new, but plenty pliable enough to use. I angled the boots on the heads somewhat, coated the carb horns with silicone grease, and after getting the cables connected ($%#@&*) the carbs popped right into the boots, not nearly the problem that I was expecting. After running the engine for about 10 minutes, I shut it down to cool a little so I could check the coolant level. About 20 minutes later I started it, but it would not idle consistently and application of throttle resulted in bogging like the mixture was lean. I finally hooked my gravity feed bottle to the fuel pump, started the engine, it runs great. I tried gravity feeding again bypassing the pump, same result, bad idle, bogging. Apparently the fuel pump needs to be in the system for everything to work as it should. Any thoughts on that? Sorry about the ramble, guess I am getting anxious about taking the bike on a trial run tomorrow.

 

I can't help you with that, but I do want to say congrats on the progress. Good news. Good luck.

 

Congrats on the progress!

From everything I have read and from my own experience the fuel pump is not needed on the '84 and '85 Keihin carburetors (as you may already know the '86 does not have a fuel pump - though this model has two fuel lines feeding the carbs).

This said, the rough idle is a bit of a puzzle. Perhaps another owner has encountered this..?

 

That small of an irregularity is not a big deal. In fact, I would venture a guess that most float bowls are warped to some degree. Once tight the bowl will deflect and sit flush.

Something to think about before trying to sand the bowl surface flat - it's the o-ring groove depth that is most important. If you tweak the bowl then the groove depth will be shallower in one spot. That will actually cause the seal some grief and probably do more harm than good.

A good o-ring is the key. It sounds like you've got it licked, I would worry about it any more!

 

Well, didn't get to ride it today. :violin: The headlamp is not lighting up, trying to track down the problem, I'm thinking that the dimmer switch is the culprit