Things I Learned Last Week

[woodcreekpete]

1. Not a good idea to store a bike with a full tank of 4 yr. old gas/varnish in my pretty much air tight shop. Dizziness, dry heaves and three days worth of headaches. No idea how many grey cells were lost in the process.

2. The offending bike came out of a storage auction with no papers. Must have been a tough situation to walk away from paying on the locker. In it were 2 very nice bikes, a lot of quality commercial shelving and a complete '23 T bucket hot rod in very nice shape.
   I was going to part the bike but the more I looked it over (after the blurriness went away), it seemed a shame. Low miles and plastics in perfect condition. I went down to Service Ontario which handles all vehicle stuff up here. Turns out you can swear an affidavit stating you're the rightful owner, how you acquired it, that you attempted to contact the registered owner and how much you paid. Legal Aid put the stamp on it for no .charge. Paid the tax and registration and now it's all mine.

3. My new-to-me ultrasonic cleaner showed up the other day. Big enough for 2 carbs at a time.
. My kind of tool- load it up, push a button, come back in half an hour, rotate parts, push button again. Repeat as necessary. The thing works great. Carbs I'd done my best to clean gave up a surprising amount of crud. It had a hard time with the bowls from the storage bike but eventually triumphed.
  We'll see how the carbs are in the spring. Too cold here to go outside and I'm sure as hell not firing anything up inside. Lesson learned.
Peter

[Paul.1478]

What bike was it? any photos?

[Pat Conlon]

Did you buy the contents of the entire storage unit or just the bike?

[woodcreekpete]

Did you buy the contents of the entire storage unit or just the bike?

I just bought the bike from possibly the most annoying cretin I've dealt with in a long time.
It's a 92 with just over 30k miles on it. Never been dropped or modified at all. Basically it just needs to be cleaned up.
 

[racerrad8]

3. My new-to-me ultrasonic cleaner showed up the other day. Big enough for 2 carbs at a time.
. My kind of tool- load it up, push a button, come back in half an hour, rotate parts, push button again. Repeat as necessary. The thing works great. Carbs I'd done my best to clean gave up a surprising amount of crud. It had a hard time with the bowls from the storage bike but eventually triumphed.
  We'll see how the carbs are in the spring. Too cold here to go outside and I'm sure as hell not firing anything up inside. Lesson learned.
Peter

Peter, hopefully I can save you from learning a hard lesson from ultrasonic cleaning.

I too have a cleaner that is large enough to clean a fully assembled FJ carb bank. I used to strip the carbs and drop the rack into the cleaner. Well, unfortunately for me I started having running issues.

Upon inspection, I found major corrosion issues in the carbs especially in the places where the cleaner cannot be cleaned out from. The biggest place I found this is in the fuel inlet system. The carb ports that the fuel tees and cross over tubes. The ports in the carbs are larger than the fitting and the fittings use o-rings to seal. Behind the orings and in the ports of the carbs the cleaning solution cannot be eliminated. Most of the time the cleaning solution will corrode the aluminum.

The second place we same this issue is under the float needle orings in that carb port. Again, there is no way to get the cleaning solution out.

I have never cleaned a fully assembled set of carbs, but I have read of people doing it with other small engine carbs.

Randy - RPM

[woodcreekpete]

3. My new-to-me ultrasonic cleaner showed up the other day. Big enough for 2 carbs at a time.
. My kind of tool- load it up, push a button, come back in half an hour, rotate parts, push button again. Repeat as necessary. The thing works great. Carbs I'd done my best to clean gave up a surprising amount of crud. It had a hard time with the bowls from the storage bike but eventually triumphed.
  We'll see how the carbs are in the spring. Too cold here to go outside and I'm sure as hell not firing anything up inside. Lesson learned.
Peter

Peter, hopefully I can save you from learning a hard lesson from ultrasonic cleaning.

I too have a cleaner that is large enough to clean a fully assembled FJ carb bank. I used to strip the carbs and drop the rack into the cleaner. Well, unfortunately for me I started having running issues.

Upon inspection, I found major corrosion issues in the carbs especially in the places where the cleaner cannot be cleaned out from. The biggest place I found this is in the fuel inlet system. The carb ports that the fuel tees and cross over tubes. The ports in the carbs are larger than the fitting and the fittings use o-rings to seal. Behind the orings and in the ports of the carbs the cleaning solution cannot be eliminated. Most of the time the cleaning solution will corrode the aluminum.

The second place we same this issue is under the float needle orings in that carb port. Again, there is no way to get the cleaning solution out.

I have never cleaned a fully assembled set of carbs, but I have read of people doing it with other small engine carbs.

Randy - RPM

Were you using a cleaning solution  in yours? I ran mine with tap water only. Had a pretty good look at mine and didn't notice any problems. Left the jets in for the first cycle because they're a lot easier to get out when the carbs are hot out of the bath. Stripped them completely for the next times in. Rinsed in the kitchen sink with some dish soap to get the scuz off. Conveniently, the wife was out at the time.
  You're making me a little leary of dunking the next set

[racerrad8]

Were you using a cleaning solution  in yours? I ran mine with tap water only. Had a pretty good look at mine and didn't notice any problems. Left the jets in for the first cycle because they're a lot easier to get out when the carbs are hot out of the bath. Stripped them completely for the next times in. Rinsed in the kitchen sink with some dish soap to get the scuz off. Conveniently, the wife was out at the time.
  You're making me a little leary of dunking the next set

As long as you are completely disassembling the carbs including removal of the choke plunger, you are good to go.

Yes, I use a specific non ferrous cleaning solution for all of my sonic cleaning.

Randy - RPM