Alright,

Been stripping the carbs and making sure everything is clean.  The pilot jet as I understand it is beneath the brass plug pictured on the left side of the float bowls.  Since my other jets were totally clogged with lacquer I imagine that the pilot is as well... any good tricks for taking off that brass plug?  I have pretty minimal tools at the moment, no impact drivers or drills.

I'm all ears!



Peace,
Syzygy

You sure it's under there?  I have carbs with only two jets, so I don't know for certain, but both of mine are directly accessible from under the float bowl (which makes sense since they'll have to draw from the fuel that's in there...)  I'd be willing to bet that your jet is in the 'tube' to the left (in your picture) of where the main jet was and  the mixture screw is what's under the brass plug. 

And you'll probably need a drill to get the brass plug out.  At least that's how I've read it's done...mine was out when I got the bike.  Maybe get a 1/8" bit and start drilling into it, but don't go too far.  I'd think it would end up grabbing and start to spin before you get too far.  Then just pull it out.

Something like that...

yea i don't quite see what you are talking about. THe jets are accessable from float bowls the only thing behind brass caps is mixture screws.... for those...

punch a small nail in the center. use a wood screw (tiny root diameter, larger thread diameter) thread it in a bit and pull out with pliers

I don't know about driving a nail into it, but I like the wood screw idea. 

I can drop by this evening with the tools if you're on the way to my friend's place...I'll send you a PM with my phone number.
-Mike

just meant to start a tiny pilot hole. Not to actually punch the nail through. that way it's easy to get the wood screw started

i'm talking tiny tiny wood nail

Dude you pull that brass plug and you have a $2-300 door stop.

Your pilot jet already have been pulled.
Your air mixture screws are under a brass plug which BTW is not the one you're abusing to remove and its been removed already. Its ahead of the brass cap you're trying to get out, and its got some 1 inch depth to it, and there is a slotted screw at the bottom.

Sheesh ... no one ever looks at a manual ... man its in a nice pic, not Idiotic words even.
Hope you have not taken a stick of dynamite to it and removed it ... and most of the carb.
BTW you also have the rack rail removed. Why ? that can be on to do any work on it.
Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: Syzygy on October 17, 2009, 12:31:08 PM
Alright,

Been stripping the carbs and making sure everything is clean.  The pilot jet as I understand it is beneath the brass plug pictured on the left side of the float bowls.  Since my other jets were totally clogged with lacquer I imagine that the pilot is as well... any good tricks for taking off that brass plug?  I have pretty minimal tools at the moment, no impact drivers or drills.

I'm all ears!



Peace,
Syzygy

I'm more beer than garage right now...

Buddha is correct of course.  Do not remove the only brass thing left in the picture.  You already have all the jets out.  You were looking for the pilot air mixture screw, which you already have out looks like, which WAS under a brass cap to the upper left of the only brass thing in the picture.  Mixture screw is the screw with the spring and o ring on it.  Someone already removed the brass cap. 

Clean passages with a little wire, strip a twist tie or something.

check float height.

check o rings.  even ones under plastic cap.  buddha sells more.

reassemble.

good to go.

Beer

must
have
more


beer...

Hey man,

I'm actually going about this through the Clymer's manual, which lists my GS as one of the years covered.  Unfortunately it has a different carb in the writeup than is actually on my bike so I have had to make a couple of assumptions.

As I understand it the idle jet goes directly into the carb 'throat' that is between the throttled passageway and the cylinder.  The idle mixture screw modifies the throughput of of this jet but it is independent of the set of jets in the float bowl area.  Now, I'm more than happy to admit or understand that I'm wrong about this but I'm just drawing information from various writeups about carbs etc.

The issue I am working to fix on my bike is, for now at least, multifaceted.  First I am trying to figure out this hanging idle; I figure this problem is most likely caused by an air leak between the boots and the carbs or the carbs and the cylinders, with my money on the former.  Then, I'm dealing with a bike that stalls at idle with no choke, so this is either an idle knob setting or the pilot jets are clogged.  I have pulled three jets out of the current disassembled carb but none of them seemed linked to the engine during 0% throttle time, just the one that should be under where the brass plug is.  Anyways, I'm not trying to be impetuous or ignorant but it's the first time into the breach, so to speak.

Peace,
Syzgyy

Quote from: The Buddha on October 17, 2009, 08:52:33 PM
Dude you pull that brass plug and you have a $2-300 door stop.

Your pilot jet already have been pulled.
Your air mixture screws are under a brass plug which BTW is not the one you're abusing to remove and its been removed already. Its ahead of the brass cap you're trying to get out, and its got some 1 inch depth to it, and there is a slotted screw at the bottom.

Sheesh ... no one ever looks at a manual ... man its in a nice pic, not Idiotic words even.
Hope you have not taken a stick of dynamite to it and removed it ... and most of the carb.
BTW you also have the rack rail removed. Why ? that can be on to do any work on it.
Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: Syzygy on October 17, 2009, 12:31:08 PM
Alright,

Been stripping the carbs and making sure everything is clean.  The pilot jet as I understand it is beneath the brass plug pictured on the left side of the float bowls.  Since my other jets were totally clogged with lacquer I imagine that the pilot is as well... any good tricks for taking off that brass plug?  I have pretty minimal tools at the moment, no impact drivers or drills.

I'm all ears!

Peace,
Syzygy

Ok, I did not do any drilling on the plug, I suppose my problem is that I don't know which jets are which.  Anyways, I"m trying to figure it out and I understand the needle jet and the main jet are related but anyways, another issue...

My floats are at different levels when the bowls are off and the carbs are upside down.  Something to worry about?


Peace,
Syzygy

You want them to be at the same level - check cboling's post out.

If you want me to drop by tonight, gimme a call...I've got nothing better to do, haha.

OK you really cannot set floats by eyeball, you do have to measure and/or fill check connected to a remote tank etc, but those look off even via piture. You start getting closer and yea it has to be more precise than that.

Starting without choke implies jets and air screw passages are OK, but floats are set high. AKA rich.

The hovering idle yes you are correct, air leak. However You cannot progress to jetting test runs or even making meaning ful observations with the air leak situation.
Its like trying to drink a nice cup of coffee and being able to tell its taste standing under the niagra falls. Sorry dude, its gonna taste like water.

BTW your synch isn't looking too great from the pic either, or your right carb is seeing a lot of spit back from the carb. Significantly more black soot in it.

Cool.
Buddha.

Many thanks to badguy who took the time to come into DC tonight and help me work on the carbs and reassemble the bike.

We used his calipers to set the float height to 15mm
We used little pieces of wire to make sure the jets were really clean (don't forget that piece in your pocket, badguy!)

Put the GS back together which was fairly painless, started it up and figured we had to go for a ride to set the idle screw, so we did the GW parkway after a little turnaround right up the Potomac and to the CIA turnaround, where we promptly got the attention of an LEO.

Zipped back down to the city, bike felt to me like it was running great, now I have to learn this thing, and the art of two wheeling!

Thanks for all the info, all - I can't say I fully understand carburetors yet but I'm a lot better off than I used to be!

Again, huge thank you to badguy, who rode his SV650 and made sure I did not do anything too stupid.

Peace,
Syzygy

No problem, glad I could help.  Once I get my stuff together and sync my carbs I'll give you a hand with that as well.  It was nice to hear a GS again, it shouldn't be too long before I get mine running...

Good job guys.
Cool.
Buddha.