A bunch of carb questions

[Julia]

OK. I have been reading and reading this forum for carb answers. There are a few things I need to know.
What is a spark plug chop?
What do you mean about increasing the main jets to about 115 to 120 for air pods?
What do you mean when you say check the valve clearance?
I cleaned the carbs (not throughly) but to the point where fuel is getting in and all the ports (I think) are cleaned. We place our hands behind the carb and it runs. It dies when we remove the hands. Placed the stock airbox back on and the sucker will not run.
Where are the adjustment screws?
Is there a manual on these carbs?

I can work on my truck just fine and some cars. I know my way around an auto shop. But dealing with a motorcycle is a completly different story. It ran about 5 years ago like a champ. Now, it's a very large and partly rusty paperweight. Any help would be appreciated.

Julia

'82 GS650L (My first bike bought for $50)

[Larry D]

OK. I have been reading and reading this forum for carb answers. There are a few things I need to know.
What is a spark plug chop?
What do you mean about increasing the main jets to about 115 to 120 for air pods?
What do you mean when you say check the valve clearance?
I cleaned the carbs (not throughly) but to the point where fuel is getting in and all the ports (I think) are cleaned. We place our hands behind the carb and it runs. It dies when we remove the hands. Placed the stock airbox back on and the sucker will not run.
Where are the adjustment screws?
Is there a manual on these carbs?

I can work on my truck just fine and some cars. I know my way around an auto shop. But dealing with a motorcycle is a completly different story. It ran about 5 years ago like a champ. Now, it's a very large and partly rusty paperweight. Any help would be appreciated.

Julia

'82 GS650L (My first bike bought for $50)

Okay....I'll take a shot at your quiz before I go to bed.

1. A plug chop is process of riding at different throttle postions and turning off or chopping the engine in order to read the color of the plugs.

2. Main jets are in the carbs and need to increased in size to compensate for the increase in airflow when using pods.

3. Valves are a engine component that must be within a certain spec. They change with the use of the engine over time and must be adjusted to remain in spec.

4. Your carbs have a few adjustments. The jets mentioned earlier, float heights, needle postions. The adjust screws I believe your speaking of are the idle air/fuel screws located on the forward top center of each carb. They may be covered by a metal cap, if they've never been messed with.

5. Yes.

These bikes, as most are, are particular to the mixture of air and fuel. The bike will not run correctly without the airbox being properly sealed with the air filter and installed. Unless you install pods and re-jet.........

How'd I do ?

[Steve]

Good job, Larry.


Yeah, there's more detail behind most of those answers, but you definitely hit them all pretty much on the head.

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[Larry D]

Good job, Larry.


Yeah, there's more detail behind most of those answers, but you definitely hit them all pretty much on the head.

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Thanks Steve.

The details are in the Search feature, reading more and asking questions..........

[Steve]

OK, let's see if we can fill in some of those details.

What is a spark plug chop?
As Larry said, it is the process of holding the carbs at particular openings (this determines which of several circuit is in use), then pulling the clutch, hitting the kill switch and coasting to a stop so you can pull the plugs and inspect the color to see how well the carb jetting is working.

What do you mean about increasing the main jets to about 115 to 120 for air pods?
When modifications are made that affect the engine's ability to breathe (usually involving changing the airbox for pods and/or installing a custom exhaust), you also need to increase the amount of fuel that can mix with that extra air. This is done with larger jets or adjusting existing screws to allow more flow.

What do you mean when you say check the valve clearance?
The valves are what lets the fuel/air mixture into the cylinder where it can be ignited by the spark plug and burned, then let the burnt mixture out, into the exhaust pipes, to the muffler. There needs to be a small gap between the cams and the valves, the size of the gap is adjusted by changing shims of different thickness.

I cleaned the carbs (not throughly) but to the point where fuel is getting in and all the ports (I think) are cleaned. We place our hands behind the carb and it runs. It dies when we remove the hands. Placed the stock airbox back on and the sucker will not run.
Well, you already admit that you did not clean the carbs thoroughly. Shame on you. The bike will not run, let alone properly, until the carbs are CLEAN. This involves stripping them down, dipping each carb for a day, then re-assembling with new o-rings that are available from cycleorings.com.

Where are the adjustment screws?
The adjustment screws are on the top of the outlet tube of each carb. If they have never been adjusted before, they might still be under a cap that was mandated by the EPA to preserve the factory setting. No need to worry about setting these screws until you thoroughly clean the carbs, though, as you will need to remove these screws before you dip the carbs.

Is there a manual on these carbs?
Yeah, there is a manual, but the carb cleaning series found in the Garage section will probably do what you need, as far as cleaning them.


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[BassCliff]

Greetings and Salutations!!

Hi Ms. Julia,

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Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff