VF500 F float bowl removal issue. Wisdom needed, please.

I have reported the recent success with Simple Green and a Harbor Freight ultrasonic cleaner on the varnish problem in my VF500 F carbs and my hopefullness about getting them working in another thread, but have run into a new problem. Many posters have emphasized to not seperate the carb assembly but I just can't find any way to remove the float bowl nearest the throttle cable attachment point. The bowl will almost clear the adjacent carb body and might do so if I do some grinding on the bowl bottom and adjacent carb body, but that shouldn't be necessary. The FSM simply states" remove the float bowls" with no suggestion of any interference. I'm attaching a couple of pictures of the situation to clarify it. I must be doing something not too bright or overlooking something. I'm optimistic about the project, but stalled until I can get past this hurdle. Help please.

 

turn the throttle cable by hand it will fit

 

Thanks for the idea ,butI have tried a bunch of different cable drum positions and none work because the drum is circular, stays a constant distance from the edge of the bowl and gets in the way no matter where it is rotated.
The main cause of the problem seems to be that there is a metal tube that is visible in the third photo that extends down into a cavity in the very bottom of the bowl which prevents the bowl from being moved forward even when lifted as high as possible. This tube is not visible in any of the photos in the FSM. All of my carbs have it and I'm afraid it was a change made in the '86 year that may make it impossible to remove that bowl as it was previously. I will try to find a microfiche of an '86 carb and post the actual name of the piece, but if you look closely at the 3rd picture I attached you can see it fairly well. Please keep ideas coming I dread having to seperate the carbs from each other.

 

You might need to remove part of throttle linkage. i'm sure it's not impossible to remove bowl, but you might need to split carb set later if you discover leaky fuel tube O-rings, just sayin.

 

Thanks for the additional idea but there don't appear to be any linkage components in the way at all except for the narrow drum the throttle cables ride on, which appears to be integral with the butterfly shaft of the carb it is attached to.
I couldn't find the technical name for the tube which I'm concerned is an '86 only carb change but it is easily seen in the attached picture. It is the tube extending down from the main carb body which is to the right of the right side float pivot pin support. I'm usually optimistic, but I'll bet a $10.00 bill (payable in cash) that this tube or rod is only on '86 carbs and that there is no way to get the bowl off without seperating the carbs or doing some grinding on some of the parts. If I lose the bet I'll be delighted to pay up!

Jay

 

So remove throttle drum if it helps, just one nut holds it in place on most carbs.

 

i have a 85 n it was tight i didnt slide em to center but didnt remove linkage mbe 86 diff??

 

I haven't really followed the thread. So your doing this with the carbs together?? Why?? How are you going to get the carb body's internal circuits clean? Well I guess if you can shoot carb cleaner in to the idle jet hole and it comes out of the holes at the throttle plate headside it should be ok. What do the pilot screw tips look like?

 

If you look back to my opening query, you can see that I suspected that I might be doing something "not bright". Well, I'm not sure exactly what it was, but after turning the carbs upside down to remove the main retaining screws of the offending one in hopes of moving it a few MM, when I turned them back over the float bowl was in a different position than I had ever manuvered it into. I said, "Hm, that's interesting" wiggled it a bit and off it came.
I greatly appreciate the input and apologize for having taken expert consulting time on what should have been a non-problem. I have done Triumph, Norton and small block Chevy complete crankshaft up rebuilds but just don't know my way around V4s yet. Perhaps in another few months I'll be able to offer some help instead of only asking for it.
I really didn't want to seperate the carbs because the linkages looked intimidating.
My plan now is first to remove and ultrasonic clean all the jets (including the idle mixture screws). Then I'll remove the cv slides keeping them (and the jets) in numbered tins so they will go back into the carbs they came out of and immerse the 4 carb assembly in Simple Green for a few hours. After that I'll make sure all carburetor passages and jets are clear, reassemble and bench test with an auxiliary tank for leaks and if all is good, reinstall on the bike.
Easier said than done, I'm sure, but that is the plan. Am I overlooking anything important?

Thanks again,

Jay

 

Chinese puzzle, that is.

Dr.Jay, you'll need to find at least 50psi compressed air to finish the cleaning right, gotta blast through all them holes.