So I mentioned in my last post that I’d bought and learned to ride a motorcycle. This was a $750 motorcycle I bought up in Jamestown. I reasoned that if I wrecked it, or if it stopped working after a couple months, I was only out $750 plus whatever parts I put into it. It was solid reasoning, and I don’t regret my decision.
However, this decision has come with a LOT of work. I expected this, and looked forward to learning something about engines and mechanics. I am definitely learning.
This bike has carburetors rather than fuel injectors, which meant that I’d need to make sure the things were clean and adjusted properly. I had a high idle problem, which pointed to an air intake problem. Gabe and I removed the carburetors and removed the intake boots attached to the cylinder, and replaced the o-rings, which were flatter than normal, and it was here that we discovered the first of my problems.
I had a stripped cylinder head bolt hole. Someone had torqued down the intake boot bolt WAY too hard and had stripped the inside of the soft, aluminum head. I checked on my favorite motorcycle forum (http://www.thegsresources.com) and found that people had fixed stripped threads with something called a Helicoil kit. I went down to Ace, picked one up, and Gabe and I installed it. Problem solved.
Getting the carbs back on the bike proved to be a MAJOR hassle, and I realized that the clamps I had on the airbox side of my carbs were messed up pretty badly. I made the decision to buy new clamps, and while waiting for those to arrive, I decided that it might be a better plan to leave the carbs off, give them a good and thorough cleaning, and THEN put them back on. I’m glad I did.
The Suzuki GS series has 4 carburetors; one for each cylinder. Carb #1 had no problems, but it went very slowly, as I was learning how to take it apart. Carb #2, however, was a serious pain.
A carburetor accepts gas from the gas tank, and fills the bottom portion of the device, called the float bowl. It knows when to cut off the flow of gas by using a float, which presses on a needle valve when it rises to a certain level. The needle valve is what shuts off the gas flow. That float is connected to the carburetor body with a pin that goes through two posts.
This pin, for some absurd reason, is TIGHTLY seated in these posts, and can be a pain to get out. A previous owner of my bike found that out, as he actually managed to BREAK one of the posts. He did a bad epoxy job, and when I was getting the pin out, the top of the post fell off.
Now, my bike came with a set of spare carburetors, for some reason. I decided to try and use the spare carb #2′s body instead of trying to JB Weld the float post. However, when I got everything out of carb #2, I realized there was a plug in the top of the carb body hiding one of the screws. (It’s the air screw, actually, and the plug was placed there at the bidding of the EPA so we can’t tinker with our carburetors. However, without removing that screw, we can’t do a thorough cleaning. A carb dip will destroy the little o-ring in that hole, making the entire thing useless.) I drilled out the plug, screwed in a wood screw, and pulled that bad boy out.
I then performed the cardinal error of mechanics. Be prepared to cringe. Because that little air screw hadn’t been touched since the carbs were manufactured nearly 30 years ago, it was pretty well seized. So I did what every manual and mechanic will tell you not to do: I grabbed a very well-fitting screwdriver, and attempted to force it out. That’s right, folks, I mangled the head of that screw.
So, with the second carb body rendered useless by my idiocy, I returned to using JB Weld to get that float tower back on. The procedure went quite well, and aside from having to drill out the pin hole of some rogue epoxy, it went on perfectly! With carb #2 clean, I began work on #3 and #4, which had no problems at all. Started and finished them both yesterday. I then reassembled the carbs, except for the float bowls of all of them.
When I took the float bowls off, the gaskets to all of them were pretty brittle, and I knew they’re be relatively inexpensive. I ordered new ones, which took a week to SHIP. They finally shipped out Friday, so I have to wait on them to get my float bowls and idle screw on.
Then I get to bench sync the carbs, getting them ready to vacuum sync them. In all, the procedure for cleaning and rebuilding carbs isn’t that HARD…it’s just time-consuming, and you really have to be detail-oriented. As a friend of mine once said, “there’s a lot of little parts, and they’re ALL important.” He’s definitely right. You can’t misplace a part, and then just hope for the best.
Getting the carbs back on the bike is going to be a chore, but I shouldn’t need to take them off for a long time! :)
