Peer Pressure 1986 VFR700

Time to learn some more things. As a few of you guys mentioned, there's just no way my carburetor is going to work with the damaged butterfly valves and sync plates (among other damages). Captain very kindly hooked me up with a set of carburetor bodies I can use instead. I'll be transferring a bunch of components from the existing one onto the (new) one. I think I can see four California hippie nipples I'll need to cap off.

I took the advice of sourcing viton orings and other components individually for pennies on the dollar compared to the kits I'd been purchasing. We'll see how that goes. I'm hoping I can use the re-usable clips (3/64" = 1.19mm) instead of the 1mm cotter pins (bought both from mcmaster carr) for the choke linkages. We shall see.

Realistically I probably could have gotten away without buying new float valves and seats. I bought them from Jets R Us. I guess I'm kind of annoyed that I was under the impression that they were OEM that I was purchasing. But now I realize that was my fault. I had emailed them to verify that the "Needle valve GENUINE Keihin part 371-14990-60-00 and 16011-382-004 and 16030-1007 and 13370-26E00 (sku 018-880) $9.82" were OEM Keihin, and they verified they were. But I had damage on two of the fuel filters on the float valves on the old ones, so I ordered the 18-4738 float valve needle assembly. I wanted to avoid aftermarket, but in overthinking things, I've actually landed myself in the exact situation I was trying to avoid. And paying for extra for it. I need to focus on one thing at at time... Luckily it's easy to go back and forth between float valves, and I should be able to sort all that out with some trial and error.

Going to make up some new fuel lines as well to save myself the frustration of super brittle lines.

 

it's difficult to switch out throttle plates without bending the shaft, so b careful, and use locktite on the screws.

 

I'm just going to switch the full bodies. I thought about doing just the plates, but I don't trust myself to not break something or make things worse. I can't quite picture how to re-wind the springs. I'd have to swap the full shaft and plate assembly because the sync "plates" (whatever they're called that house the sync springs are completely bent. And also that plenum side has the broken 4.5mm cylinder.

It's probably more work, but I'd feel better about just switching everything.

 

Just use the assembly I sold you for sure, and transfer everything over. Asking for trouble removing the shafts, and it's absolutely not the route to take in this instance.

The 4 CA vents can be be connected together in pairs to seal, I find that's easy and reliable. The one odd-ball spigot is vacuum, so plug/cap with something good and resilient. Or connect to one of the ports on the cylinder below the insulators.

 

Carburetors are reassembled.

Does anyone know if there's a defined "wet test" float height? Since I apparently suck at reading float heights dry, I was hoping to take some guesswork out of it by setting wet heights.

Subtracting the height of the wood blocks, I'm currently at:

• Float 1 = 2.6cm
• Float 2 = 1.4cm (oops)
• Float 3 = 2.1cm
• Float 4 = 2.7cm

If nothing else, I know it's important to get them all as close to the same level as possible. The above picture is float #1 at 2.6mm above bottom of resting carburetor. I figured that would probably be the best place to shoot for by adjusting Float #2 and #3 after re-reading my dry test numbers and figuring out how I butchered #2 so bad.

 

I've only done it on old singles, where the carb is pretty much straight up and down, to verify where the fuck the fuel level was when I didn't have any info.

I think it's best to dial in your traditional measuring technique. The biggest mistake I see is people just turning them upside down on the bench. They have to be rotated in the air to where the float tab just touches the spring loaded button on the float valve (not depressing it), then take your reading, float bowl mating surface to the lowest point on the float.

Squirrel's cut out old credit card gages are pretty fucking nice and easy.

 

i usually check fuel levels on carbs sent to me for cleaning. lower photo shows my reference point, the seam between carb and float bowl measured half way in the middle. checking this way will confirm the accuracy of the float adjustment......or not. use a level to determine that the airbox base is level in all directions or measurements won't be reliable. it's important to have sufficient fuel waiting in the line to carbs to provide a little head pressure.

 

I did it on an EX500 a few months ago which is just two carbs straight up and the target was just get it flush with the bowl mating surface, so that was real simple. I was hoping there might be a comparison with "V" carbs, but I've never really found one.

I came across a 2017 thread where Squirrel did a similar wet test and found that the rears 1/3 read a little higher wet for the same dry setting. And that it's important to try to match the wet settings on all of them. And of course I didn't bookmark the thread nor can I friggen find it again. I was just hoping there might be a "2.5cm above bottom of carburetor" type defined level.

 

Thank you!! This is what I was looking for.

Would you say this is a good target?

 

What a stupid experience removing a 160 rear was. Even breaking the bead was a geometric puzzle.



I actually tried cleaning the front weeks ago, and I'm just not making any progress unless I use something nasty and organic that destroys the paint regardless. I wasn't planning to dump money into aesthetics on this bike for a long while, but it probably makes sense to have them blasted because I'm not sure how else to deal with them. I may have a lead on somewhere I can take them that's affordable, so we'll see how that goes.

 

i usually clean the wheels on my ' 86 700s by using a toothbrush to rub in GO-JO hand cleaner, letting it rest a bit, them flushing with water, hot works best.

can't possibly remember the last time i cleaned mine, must be several years.

 

My fav is WD40 followed by isopropyl for wheels. Go hard enough and you can get the old tape weight ick off.

 

I've found that if I go thru my full cleaner progression, whatever is left, is stained.... and will accept and hold paint. *Maybe* a light mist of etching primer, but I'll lay down some paint and be done for one more tire at least.

The wheels have texture (except the outer rim), so while those areas hold stains good, they also hold paint.

 

I should probably (hopefully) wrap up the float height adventure I had a few weekends ago.

I tried measuring with both a digital caliper and the motion pro float height tool (similar to a cut credit card). The motion pro tool always seemed to read about 0.5-0.75mm higher. And the caliper I almost always read 0.5mm higher on the side nearest to the pivot point. I did a ton of readings "blind" not looking at the caliper display and got pretty consistent.

Anyway, if I set the floats to 7mm, the fronts 2/4 would leak. When I hooked the fuel line up (to the bowl drain) to them, the fuel level was wayyyyy above the float chamber. No wonder I couldn't stop the leaking with the old floats at 7mm. The thing was absolutely flooded. I'd actually messaged Joe at V4Dreams asking for advice on wet testing, and he mentioned he always sets them to 9mm dry and is good to go. I got pretty thorough and did a bunch of tests and ended up a 9, 9, 9, and 8.5mm on my Motion Pro tool for a wet float height as close to middle of the diagonal and feel pretty good about where they are.

Once I get the bike running again we'll see if that actually works out, but it certainly explains why I was struggling to stop the leak at 7mm.

*Edit--if you drop in a set of K&L's valve and seats without adjusting them, you're going to be at like 12+mm, so make sure to set them! The K&L also has a little bit wider of a "button" or whatever the spring loaded piece on top is called.

 

where was the leak coming from ? don't imagine--however you measure--that you can dial in anything closer than + or - one mm. that's why checking fuel level with the clear tube is important.

 

I just swapped in a set of different flaot valves (out of your 86 CA carbs) into the 92. 2 buttons were frozen and I didnt want to wait on soaking them. Had to readjust all the floats... to 9mm.

And yours werent actually "leaking"? They were overflowing?

 

"Overflowing" is probably a much better description. I'm betting it was flowing out of the progression holes. It was never quite like a massive leak--but it was a slow wetting of the area.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that 9mm was much closer to the mark than 7mm. I was all the way up here at 7mm from my readings.

 

To add to that--100% your suggestion of polishing up the seat and wiping up the needle valve with laquer thinner would have been totally fine because the old valves were fine at 8mm. It's just when I dry set them to 7mm that I was overflowing. The published 7mm in the service manual was no good for me.

I'm just trying to find a better way--even if it takes longer on the front end--to do float height because it's burned me so bad in the past. I appreciate the advice from both you and squirrel.

 

I had issues with a slow leak at the float valve. As part of the last rebuild I left the carbs overnight hooked to a hanging fuel bottle to check for slow leaks.
eg) https://vfrworld.com/threads/matt-tries-–-1984-vf500f-overhaul.57900/page-3#post-612263

for the OCD, here are some U tube videos on carb float valves

 

I got the wheels back from the powder coater yesterday, and they look pretty sweet. Pressed in new bearings and got the front BT46 120/80-16 spooned on easy peasy.



I'm getting my ass kicked by the rear 140/70-18 though. I've never encountered this issue before. After getting one half of the tire onto the rim, the 18" inner diameter of the tire bead won't go over the bead hump. Heated nice and warm with a hair dryer and lots of RuGlyde, and normally I can literally just kneel on the thing and it'll fall onto it. Since I can't get the bottom bead to clear the bead hump, I don't have a chance at getting the top spooned onto the tire since I can't get the top bead to fall into the wheel dropwell.




Anyway, just venting. I hate giving up on spooning on a tire, but I think I'm going to need someone with an actual machine to install it. If I keep trying, I'm going to damage either the wheel or tire. grrrr...