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View Full Version : MY tip of the week CARBS!



Dirtcrasher
08-24-2003, 06:56 PM
Well someone else talked about tips but nothing happened yet so here's mine just because I feel like giving one today :-D

CLEANING YOUR CARB!!! Man if I had a dollar for every carb that sat and screwed with me I'd be rich! Anyhow for some reason there are people that feel simply removing the carb and cleaning the outside and in the fuel bowl and then blowing some air over there and your all set, right?? WRONG!! Don't be a big chicken - jets are just brass with holes in them. Nothing more than that - but you have to remove them to really clean that carb. My 250SX four stroke has 5 removable jets (brass things with slots or hex heads) Heck you really can't even mix my models up - there all different. Take that carb off and soak it in some gas overnight, then clean the outside as best as you can and blow it off. Now take off the fuel bowl and clean all that up nice - usually this is where you quit. But now that most of the crap is off get a nice clean well lighted area and start removing the jets themselves - these are the parts that really affect your fuel flow. Use carb cleaner now because it attacks the gunk better that plain gas - especially if the carb has sat - spray it and then clean with compressed air and repeat untill you can clearly see no gunk in there and daylight through all the holes. Once the jets are out you can use a pipe cleaner or q-tip to get the bigger air and gas passages. Also when the jets are out sometimes other things may drop out like the needle jet lower guide so be careful and looking at the diagram in the owners manual helps you see what you might have fall out on you. Don't use wires or scrapers or drills etc. - let the carb cleaner and the compressed air do the work. Then reinstall all the jets and snug them up - they are brass so don't go crazy. Last is the all important air or pilot screw - mark it's position and then scerw it IN slowly till it bottoms or you'll damage the important taper. Record it - such as 2 and 1/4 turns in - then you can just spin it out and when reinstalling just bottem it out and then back it off according to your records. If it's like my 4 strokes it will have a spring and a washer and an oring or two. If you just think about it it will make sense - if the spring was right against the oring it would tear it when it was turned - so thats why there is a washer in there to prevent it from damaging the oring. And the other oring is just to keep th junk out of that critical setting. Of course you can just start with the "2 turns out" or whatever the spec is. By now you should have a great carb and can rule it out as the cause of your problem. Just remember that carbs really don't where out much, they just get blockages and the sealing orings leak or crack - other than that they are a piece of cake!!

Please feel free to add to this post - the idea is to help :-D

brokdown
08-24-2003, 11:22 PM
Good post, tip of the week sounds like a sweet idea to me. I'm a big brake cleaner fan; it dries faster than anything else I've found, and cleans great. Also it's a good idea to not get any kind of cleaner on o-rings or gaskets, it'll kill them pretty quick.