TOPIC:

For all you new guys coming into 1300 ownership: These ideas might be of some help. Some tricks from 34 years of ownership !

The slotted heads on the idle-air screws are ridiculous. Especially when making adjustments on the center carb. Consider this: Cut the heads from an appropriate size socket head machine-screw and solder one to each idle-air screw. (Note: If you can't solder to save your ass- get some who can to do the soldering for you). Now, with a "ball-end" allen-head driver ( magnetize the end) the adjustment, removal and insertion of the idle-air screws is EASY ! The magnetised allen driver also makes it easy to remove and re-insert the idle-air needle springs! To help you with the accuracy of the "turns-in/turns-out count", mark the top of the Allen-driver handle with an arrow. Now you can register the position with no more......"crap...how many was that?"
The O-rings on the idle-air needles are critical. If you have to wait to receive your new ones, you can in the interim use appropriately sliced pieces of 1/8"dia. silicone fuel-tubing ( model airplane/hobby store). Slice the same width as the groove, roll the piece into place and if necessary "knead" it into place. The seal is excellent and as they do not come in contact with raw fuel: they will last quite a while - at least until your correct O-rings arrive.
Syncing the carbs can be frustrating. These ideas have made the task much easier for myself:
1) For manifold vacuum adapters I use 3 mig-welding tips. ( Wire size is irrelevant and the thread pitch works just fine). Solder a washer at the top of the threads and roll-on an O-ring. If you choose to you can pre-drill the threaded end to a larger diameter and press-in some cotton to dampen the pulses to the gauges. The mig-tips I use have a hex-head so they can be installed,"snugged" tight and removed with an appropriate size socket.
2) Accomplishing the actual sync-adjusting is much easier if you have 2 tools. one to tighten/loosen the locking nut and one to turn the 1/8" hex-head adjuster. For the nut: Grind-down an 8 mm wrench so the thickness matches the lock-nut. For the actual adjuster: Find an old flat-blade screw driver and with a "Dremel", cut a 1/8" notch into the tip. The accuracy of your adjustments will be surprisingly easier to achieve.
Hope this helps someone !

Hmm interesting, I can use one of those mig tips to supply vacuum to the GPZ900 petcock, was thinking of using a grease nipple and soldering on a bit of tube, but that sounds easier, thanks for the tip, cheers Pete.

Well, thanks for all that.
I've not had much trouble with the idle jet screws and once I bought the Morgan colour tune all works pretty good , but the carb balancing , what a joke. The heads of the screws are not even a consistent head size- there was not one wrench that would work on all three, and on all sides. I'll have to give this mod a try . Thanks

All of us have our trick tools for carb balance but your right the top fixing is not uniform with any thing. Nice idea on mixture screws I like the idea.

These are great tips and I really like how you adapted everyday tools to help in the tuneup process! Very nice!