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Sprayed some carb cleaner in the carbs this weekend

2231 Views 22 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  jeeps84
I went to Autozone and bought some spray in carb cleaner for the SV. I removed the airbox and sprayed it in there. I noticed a difference almost immediately. Then, this morning, I noticed it again.

It was so difficult to start before and now it's much easier. I still need to choke it, but not nearly as long to keep it running.

Quicker and cheaper than an all-out carb clean.
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I have to defend carbs since they are so simple. Since about 1980, almost all carbs are constant velocity. Each carb only has four moving parts, and one of them, the throttle plate, shouldn't be touched. That leaves the choke plunger, float and the needle/piston. You can't get to the choke plunger unless you detach the carbs from each other (on a four cylinder), so that leaves two moving things that you can mess up. And since most owners don't take off the vacuum chamber cover, that only leaves the floats.

The little tang holding the float valve to the float can be lost, crushed or put on wrong. And the floats could possibly be put on upside-down. The float level could be wrong. All the carbs could have been done at once so all the parts are mixed up. And the jets in the float chamber could be torqued down excessively, or not at all.

On the outside of the carb, the pilot screws could have been tightened down too much and broken the tips off (don't ask how I know this). And since installing the carbs is much more difficult than cleaning them, there could be an air leak.

Now rworkman should take off the carbs and see what he did wrong and ShanMan should take his carbs off and clean them. After all, there's only two. Spraying carb cleaner in the carb may loosen up a sticky slide, but does not clean 80 percent of the slide or clean any jets or the choke plunger. Why pay a mechanic to break your parts when you can do it for nothing.
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Kids can help, but not dogs. In the early seventies I was helping my friend change a cam on a 340 Duster. We laid all 16 pushrods and rockers in correct order, plus the new lifters all coated in oil, on a clean towel on the ground. His dog got out of the house and ran across the towel. All the parts were scattered in the dirt. I haven't heard that much cussing in three decades.
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