best 24 hr carb soak

[newgsman]

I don't subscribe to the 24 hour carb dip methodology. As mentioned, long exposure turns the carb bodies dark plus their are rubber seals around the throttle butterfly shaft and long exposure to that caustic sauce can't be doing them any good. In my experience about 8-12 hours is plenty of soak time unless the carbs are exceptionally crusty. The key to getting a good carb rebuild is to fully disassemble the carb before dunking the parts. In particular, the pilot jets, needle jet, and idle mixture screws all need to be removed. After dipping, soak the carbs in water to rinse them off followed by blowing drying in some way - compressed air works well but a leaf blower will do. After blowing most of the water off hit the carb body and all the passages with spray carb cleaner to make sure all the various passages are open. One of the critical things is to hold the pilot jets up to a light to make sure the orifice is open. Do all this stuff, and replace all the various o-rings and you will be able to do ONE carb rebuild, instead of doing the job 2, 3, 4 times as we often read about here. Short cuts are long cuts so take your time and do the job right or you will be doing it again.

thanks for the feedback, live and learn right? at least this time i will know if this is really the problem. thanks

 

[81gs1100]

I forgot about my carbs soaking in the yamalube carb dip and they came out looking fine, no darking that i noticed and everything looked good. I don't know if its just a more mild cleaner or not, but I was happy. The soak time was Friday morning till Monday afternoon as I was soaking them at a different location. Bowls, caps, bodies, all the jets.

I guess its just a matter of checking on them and only letting them soak as long as is needed.

IMHO if your bike was running before and doing good and then went south, Im not sure a dip is needed. I would just take them apart and make sure the jets and passage ways are clear. Dipping is mainly ment for soaking carbs that have been sitting for a long time and have varnished.

 

[tejasmud]

+1 on what Ed mentioned, "One of the critical things is to hold the pilot jets up to a light to make sure the orifice is open."

Very critical.

Although, have seen pilots sometimes where you can see light, but there is a crusty ring still within the orifice. Like a micro-donut. From looking at the pilot orifice, it looks clear, but lots of trouble with getting a bike to idle correctly.

A few times at cleaning, and one learns to keep the bike running, started, anything to keep the gas moving through the carbs ever so often, or just drain them over long storage periods.


I'm curious about the "yamalube carb dip" now.

Fri to Mon!!! , sounds pretty good. With the New Berryman's Carb dip, might lead one to painting the carbs over that period.

Does it leave your hands stinky like the B9 did?

 

[81gs1100]

I'm curious about the "yamalube carb dip" now.

Fri to Mon!!! , sounds pretty good. With the New Berryman's Carb dip, might lead one to painting the carbs over that period.

Does it leave your hands stinky like the B9 did?

OMG, yes it is hella stinky, and if you dump some out in the back of your suburban you will smell it for over a month and it doesn't dry... So wow, yeah it stinks.

But yeah over the weekend, in about a 3:1 ratio because I didn't quite have enough to cover the carbs in the container I had them in. So that also could have spared them?? But I would give it a try, Im happy with the results.

Oh and about the jets... Seeing light through them isn't enough, I ran into a slow circuit, (pilot jet) I wasn't pulling gas. I took it apart looked though the jet, cleared the passages, everything good. Put it back to gether and the same results. After a few times taking the carbs apart and looking through the jets I seen light, and some times I didn't, I poked a wire through it again and sprayed carb cleaner, looked and seen light again, set the jet down and continued assy. the carbs. Went to put in the pilot jet, looked through it and no light again. Turned out there was a little flap of something that would open and close. So yeah you have to take your time, don't just see light and expect it to be clean.

 

[woodman]

I use guitar strings from about .009 to .019. Each bag is only a dollar at a guitar store. Thats the only way to clean badly plugged pilot jets. Theres about 3 feet in each bag

 

[Steve]

OK, what is the connection between concrete and electrolytic?

... I was wondering how concrete effects the carb dip in the message below.

Well, for the answer to that question, click this link to see what is on Berryman's site. It's in the top paragraph about the carb dip.

... Just don't leave them in the chem dip for more than a day. It will turn the aluminum parts black. I forgot on of the float bowl caps in the basket, which got double dipped.

If you leave it in even longer, does it turn back? Just wondering because I forgot about a float bowl in my can of 'dip' for about two weeks.
It really did not look a whole lot darker than other parts of the same carb set that had been in for only a day.

I don't subscribe to the 24 hour carb dip methodology. As mentioned, long exposure turns the carb bodies dark plus their are rubber seals around the throttle butterfly shaft and long exposure to that caustic sauce can't be doing them any good. In my experience about 8-12 hours is plenty of soak time unless the carbs are exceptionally crusty. ...

I have not tried the 8-12 hour method, but it might work. My first set of carbs, I soaked for the 15-20 minutes that were suggested on the can. That did not work, so I went for 2 hours. That did not work, either, so I just jumped to a full day of soaking, I did not bother with the 8-12 hour soak on the way. My work schedule at the time did not fit well with trying to do carbs morning and evening, so I just did them in the evening, hence the 24-hour soak.

The warning about the rubber seals around the throttle shaft might be a valid one, though, but for all of us that have done the 24-hour soak, I don't remember anyone mentioning that they now had problems with leaky throttle shaft seals. :-k

.

 

[81gs1100]

Proper storage of Chem Dip is also a very important situation. Because of the high Di-electric chemistry, some discharge "electrolysis" may result from storing directly on concrete or on a metal rack staged on concrete.

Hmmm, sounds like some ole timer wrote this, havn't we all figured out that concrete will not have effect on batteries yet? Thats all Im saying, I can't believe that concrete, a perfectly neutral substance would some how suck the electricity out of a battery or out of this chem dip.

Anyways, it might still be a good dip but I havne not used it, I have only used the Yamalube brand, and some other off brand a few years ago.

 

[mcycle-nut]

I used Gunk Hydro-Seal with good results. It ate through my nitrile gloves in about 15 minutes and removed the silicone the PO had put on the choke plungers.

What EXACTLY is it called? It seems everything by Gunk is called Hydro-Seal, no? Where did you get it? It's very fustrating as all I read about is "Berryman's," and I've never seen it, as living here in Canada we don't get the "good" stuff. :-s Any others out there who can recommend a good carb dip available in Canada?

 

[Steve]

What EXACTLY is it called?

Here ya go.

.

 

[mcycle-nut]

Ooops! Everything seems to be called SOLDER Seal. I'll see if I can find something in the Gunk line. Thanks.

 

[eddie50clarke]

in the uk we stuggle to get anything like berrymans

i used swaffega degreser and oil remover soaked for 1 hour in a 20 to 1 sollution of water and degreaser

 

[electricwalk]

Hey guys. That berrymans b9 stuff is basically just a mixture of DCM and Xylene along with some extra crap that is only thrown in to make rectification(distillation) of the pure solvents difficult... same as most liquid paint stripper found at the hardware store.

Dont get the semi-paste stuff. =0

And be sure dunk the parts in some gas immediately after you pull em out of the stripper.

 

[crapwacker]

Add some MEK to the berrymans

 

[tjhenry]

i can't find berryman's, but napa has a cleaner with a basket, it's 19.99, anyone ever heard of the house brand from napa, and if it's ok?

EDIT: just called my last resort place and they have it, next question is, does it matter what temprature this stuff is stored at? i won't be cleaning the carbs until winter, and it's gets a little frigid in wisconsin, and i don't have a heated garage

 

[electricwalk]

i can't find berryman's, but napa has a cleaner with a basket, it's 19.99, anyone ever heard of the house brand from napa, and if it's ok?

EDIT: just called my last resort place and they have it, next question is, does it matter what temprature this stuff is stored at? i won't be cleaning the carbs until winter, and it's gets a little frigid in wisconsin, and i don't have a heated garage

When it comes to storing chemical solvents... cold = good. Hot = bad. But when it comes to putting it to use... you don't want it cold nor do you want it to evaporate too quickly. I'd say use in full sunlight/open heated garage below 70 degrees. Use in the shade above such temp for desired results.

 

[sschering]

I have a can of the NAPA stuff I've been using works as advertised.. 20 min to remove the typical gunk. Odor isn't to bad..

I did a 3 day soak on a few of my carb bodies with frozen pilot screws..
After the soak I was able to turn the pilot screws out.. even the one I'd broken a EZ out on before I tried the dip.

After 3 days it didn't discolor the carbs, etch or pit them at all.. They just look nice and clean.

cleanup is easy.. just rinse the parts off with water.. I've been dunking them in a 5 gallon bucket of water then blowing them off with an air gun.

Just for giggles I tossed a spare frozen front mater cylinder from the GS750 in there.. Think 27 years in storage crystallized brake fluid and frozen solid.
It's been in for 2 weeks.. started getting a little loose after a week.. Haven't bothered to check on it for a few days.. Funny thing is the rubber boot is still intact.. the dip didn't eat it..