New Project

[Mitragorz]

Not much of an update, but an update nonetheless.

https://youtu.be/MKzKStlyQWA

All this was probably 1-1/2 to 2 weeks ago, just dug into the carbs a little, checked out what's going on in there.  Pretty nasty, as expected.  I've done quite a bit since the stuff in the video, so better updates coming soon.

[RPM - Robert]

We have only had a few sets in the shop that have looked like that over the years and I don't know that they were even that bad. I have had good luck soaking carbs like this in fresh petrol. Soak for a week or so and usually everything frees up well enough to get it apart and clean. Once or twice a day I kind of get in there and move/try and move floats and slides around etc and they free up.

On that broken screw. The side of the air intake is actually peened over from Mikuni. You may be better served try to "tighten" it through, stead of trying to pull the peen through the threads with no head.

[Mitragorz]

We have only had a few sets in the shop that have looked like that over the years and I don't know that they were even that bad. I have had good luck soaking carbs like this in fresh petrol. Soak for a week or so and usually everything frees up well enough to get it apart and clean. Once or twice a day I kind of get in there and move/try and move floats and slides around etc and they free up/

Spoiler alert...  Carb #1 never freed up.  I got my hands on a set of carb bodies from aviationfred that I'm going to be using, apparently he had sent them off to you guys at RPM for a rebuild but decided that it wasn't worth the cost, and went with a new set for one o his builds.  This was probably 6 or so years ago or so, according to him.  But I have them now and they look to be in great shape, I'm not sure why they needed a rebuild in the first place.  I've got the rebuild kits from you waiting to be installed in his carb bodies and, as long as cylinder #3 isn't toast, it should fire up.  The carbs took a backseat to the tank, which sprung more leaks as the vinegar ate away at the rust... But I'm getting way ahead of myself here!

[RPM - Robert]

Yea, I think around that time a new set of carbs and rebuilding a set with carb kits were roughly the same cost. As Yamaha keeps rolling in and discontinuing things the prices get higher and higher. Damn alternator a few years ago was around 200 bucks I found one at a dealership somewhere back east for a customer and they wanted $1600 for it.

[Mitragorz]

A couple more updates here:

Trying to clean the old carbs... At this point, I thought I could still save them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYaa3lFZGw0


And here I start getting into the fuel tank, to see what kind of surprises are waiting for me here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kXwRmPeGOc