VF1000F Carb problem

Hello all...have just joined this forum seeking some expertise on this bike. A friend of mine bought an 84 VF1000F with 8,500 miles on it. It sat for 22 years with a half a tank of old gas in it. The inside of the gas tank is another story. He has asked me to get it running for him. I do have a lot of experience on bikes, I collect some of the "other" brand two strokes and have also rebuilt carbs on my 4 cylinder Suzie.

Here is what I have done so far:
Oil and filter changed twice
removed alternator cover and turned over engine by hand to make sure nothing was locked up, all is good here
Cooling system drained and flushed twice
new fuel filter
ran fuel pump with fresh gas to remove any crud
removed carbs, disassembled and cleaned all jets, used carb cleaner inside and blew out all orifices with compressed air.

Question on starter jet, manual says to remove it....how do you get it out, is it a press fit???
Carbs were not disassembled from each other.
Carbs put back together and reinstalled on bike.
New battery, rigged up a Mason jar with fresh fuel (gas tank...work in progress...full of rust)

The bike fired up almost right away, ran nicely and let it warm up, cooling system working fine, fans come on.
Bike didn't seem to want to idle, noticed one exhaust pipe was cool, # 2 cylinder.
Removed plugs and checked color, the other 3 cylinders have deposits on them, the plug for number 2 is clean as a whistle. There is gas in all 4 carbs, I do not have any leaks anywhere.
No. 2 carb has gas in it, checked by opening drain screw.

Have removed the carbs again and don't see any crud anywhere.

What am I missing here? Does the starter jet actually come out and if so, how do you get it out.

Thanks for any help on this...........Cheers....Fred

 

You probably missed cleaning the idle jet on that cylinder proppaly. Cleaner spray and compressed air work in only the least-clogged cases, while really dirty carbs almost always need the wire treatment. You'd need to have removed the mixture screws and cleaned those passages too for best running at idle.

Sometimes playaz say "I know the jets are clean cuz i saw light through them," but that's not enough to say they are as clean as they were new. Layers of almost invisible accretions of dried fuel pile up around the hole reducing its size even if you can see light, and that's where the wire does its job !

The fuel enrichment circuits (aka, choke) won't work right unless the long, non-removable brassy pickup tubes are cleared with a 012" steel wire to a depth of about 30 mm and you can easily blow air through with lung pressure.

 

Hi...thanks for the info. I'm not sure what you mean by an idle jet. The manual calls them starter jet, slow jet and main jet. I ripped the carbs out again and inspected everything again on all four carbs. I used a small wire to clean and check the starter jet (brass tube that doesn't come out) and all other jets and openings. I did forget to do the pilot screw on all four carbs, now done, but didn't seem to make a difference on the other 3 carbs. I get no gas at all even though opening the drain screw gas comes out. Revving up the engine and giving it gas makes no difference. I pulled the plug wire off, makes no difference, it doesn't fire on this cylinder cause it ain't getting gas. If I can drain gas out from the bottom of the bowl, obviously gas is coming into the carb but not going out. What else can be plugged?

 

I have taken the carbs out again, checking the jets in #2 carb, should I be able to get a thin wire through the slow jet from one end to the other? It seems to stop where the thinner part of the jet turns into the wide part. I see your picture above shows the wire all the way through. Cannot get a wire through it, soaking it right now. Checked the slow jet in the carb beside it and it too still had a bit of crud in it but was able to get it out with a fine wire. Got all the crud out finally, reinstalled the jets and put the carbs back on the bike. Fired it up and now runs fine on all cylinders, purrs like a kitten, boy does it sound smoooth. Now onto the rusty tank......Thanks again for the pics, should have clued in when I looked at those.

 

The hole of the pilot jet is about .010". It's very small. You need to mic a piece of wire that size to poke thru the jet. Any thing bigger will not fit. The smallest numbered drill bits are .013". You will enlarge the jet if you use one. If you have to you could do that, it will only change your pilot screw setting to less turns out. Still better to find a small wire to clean jet with.

 

Just an FYI, but if you need wire that thin, try your local music center. A .010 guitar string can usually be had for about $1.

 

Hey Fender, that's a good tip, you can get electric guitar strings for a buck. i bought #11,12,13,14,15 (0.011-0.015) in order to clean and verify the size of the pilot jets aka idle jets in various bikes. e.g. the 750 vfr uses #38 or 40 pilots, whereas the 1000 uses 42 or 45. Can use them like go-nogo gauges.