Carb advise

[Skools Out]

i do mine every spring that way too, no rebuild i just tear them apart clean all the brass and metal parts in laquer thinner and the rest i clean with mineral spirits, works great never have a carb issue, that's what i would do if i were you.

[willy]

That cleans the needles the jets, low idle circuit etc doing it that way Todd?

[phatdaddy]

willy, i pulled the carbs on that yamaha i bought last year and it was no biggie. they are very simple to tear down and reassemble. just make sure to mark the bowls to the tops if you take them apart all at once. also sierra makes a kit for them with gskts for not very much.

[RWilson2526]

I was exaclty where you were at early this season.....after flip flopping back and forth I finally didnt have the guts to do myself ...cost me $475 for a rebuild (+ $40 he charged for a link and sync as he said someone prior to me had been monkeying bad with the carbs)....next time I might go for it on my own.... but it was kind of nice dropping it off and picking it up done....

[THEFERMANATOR]

If they have never been apart to your knowledge, I would get carb kits for em before tearing em apart. Once gaskets get to be about 7-8 years old they tend to lose there pliability and get brittle. Try a HEAVY shot of SEAFOAM and gas through the fuel system first though. Get a small tank and hook-up with 5 gallons of gas in it and about 1 quart of SEAFOAM in it, and I like to mix in some BERRYMAN CHEM-TOOL with it as well(about a pints worth). Run it for about 15 minutes and then let it sit for an hour. Then run it again for 15 minutes and let it sit overnight. Start it up the next day and see if it will idle. Best case scenario this will flush em out and you'll be good to go, worst case scenario it doesn't help your carbs but de-carbons the engine which it probably needs anyways and you have to build the carbs anyways.

[Blue_Runner]

I did exactly as Skools and Tsub said. It wouldn't hurt to replace the gaskets plus as Ferm said they get to where they stick and tear easily so it would be good to be prepared for that.

[spareparts]

don't use a strong chemical on those carbs, Yamaha cautions soaking them in traditional carb cleaner as they have a clearcoat on the aluminum to seal up the porosity of the aluminum. I generally use Mercury power tune to clean out carbs, just spray it in a cup and soak out the little parts, fill the bowl after stripping the carb, and set the main body on the bowl just like it would be sitting if it was on the motor, after soaking, go back and spray some power tune thru the holes and blow them all out. Stay away from the welding tip cleaner, it will change the orfice size of anything it goes thru( I use the tip cleaner to fine tune quadrajet carbs). My wife kept complaining about the chemical smell from the garage after I rebuilt a set of carbs, so I took a hint from Yamaha, and bought a sonic cleaner from Harbour Freight. It works great, just tear the carb down, fill the cleaner with water and a splash of purple stuff, turn on the sonic and the heat, 15 min later its ready to be blown out and reassembled. The carb on the lawn mower picked up some crap the other day, I pulled it off, took it apart, threw it in the sonic cleaner(gaskets and all), two beers later, the mower was back running. The Harbour Freight cleaner isn't the best, but it works, I'm going to get a bigger comercial unit one of these days. With power tune at $9 a can, I've probably run at least 30 carbs thru the sonic cleaner, its paying for itself