TOPIC:

Does ultra sonic cleaning work on the small passageways in the KZ1300 carbs? lve been ''old school'' in the past and done them by hand, but after these im prepared to go back to school.

Any experiences would be appreciated.

Cheers

I can't offer any experience on ultra sonic cleaning but I gotta ask, are they off of a CBX?

Bill

Yes Bill, correct they are, and right buggers at that, the pilot jets are press fitted, so you have to make a adaptor to get them out.................and you have to do this to the bike to get to them.

Cheers

I tried an ultrasonic bath on mine a few years ago and to be quite honest it was next to useless. Best thing I have found is to strip them and clean with Carb and throttle body cleaner it melts the deposits off in a flash, use compressed air but turned down to about 25psi and DO NOT use compressed air while the diaphragms are in the carbs.

I have an ultrasonic cleaner and it works great for cleaning the outer surfaces of objects. It's absolutely useless for cleaning the passages in a carb. throttle body cleaner or brake cleaner seem to work the best at dissolving gummed build up in the carbs but beware, these cleaners are very aggressive on rubber parts like neoprene rubber tipped float bowl needles or O-rings. You'll need to strip these items off/out of your carbs before cleaning with these cleaners.

The last word of advise I can provide is a little tidbit I learned from our member Scotch. I've been rebuilding carbs for 45 years and never cleared out idle/low speed circuits this way until Scotch taught me this lesson.

I've always dunked carbs in carb cleaner then after removing from the cleaner washed the cleaner out of the carb body with hot water and then started blowing all the passages out with compressed air. The worst passage in a carb to clear/check with the air is the low speed circuit and I never considered blowing out the circuit from the tiny port hole at the butterfly plate back towards the idle jets, in other words backwards to the flow of fuel in that passage. The reason for doing this is to flush out any debris backwards to the larger parts of the passage instead of jamming the debris down in the smallest part of the passage, which is the port at the butterfly plate. When Scotch first mentioned this is made total sense to me and I've had excellent results since doing it this way. As far as carb cleaner, I've had successful results with either throttle body cleaner or brake cleaner although I do have a 2 gallon container of automotive carb cleaner for total immersion of carbs. I find the aerosol cans more convenient.

I am forever grateful to Scotch for his sharing of carb rebuilding on this site. His help here is invaluable. Scotch also fabricates brass floats for the carbs which is the only replacement for the stock floats which tend to absorb fuel over the years and sink.

Thanks Gents, i thought it was too good to be true, i dont mind doing carbs.....................the first time;)

lve been cleaning carbs for longer than i care to remember also, and as soon as i read that about the passage way to the idle jet to go from the outside to the inside so to speak , it made total sense!

l replace the O rings in carbs as a matter of course, the ones on the outside of throttle valve bodies are usually shot. l soda blast the outsides of carbs rinse them under the tap, disassemble them and clean them and blow them out twice with carb cleaner, with a needle attachment on the air hose you can check easily that the passage ways are open. The first tank has a heavy dose of seafoam, and the rest stabil as a matter of course, every engine i have apart from my daily driver is run on ethanol free gas.

lve glanced through Scotchs carb thread, it will be open when i do mine, as for the floats, im hope that this is the first bike ive brought in 40 years where the carbs where drained before storage, now there's a triumph of hope over experience

Cheers

Now please tell me that the carbs come out without having to tilt the engine forward.