Carb Issues

Hey Guys,

Well I couldn't wait any longer, after an hour of chipping ice out of my eaves I decided it was time to try and fire the bike up. The good news is after a 6 month sleep it fired up second kick. The bad news is that after about 30 seconds I notice gas dripping from the bottom of the carbs coming from the ticklers. I know this sounds like the floats are too high, but this is whats confusing me...

I had the carbs off this winter and cleaned, new stay up floats, viton needles, etc. and set the floats as per Bushmans page, (the PO had them level with the edge of the bowl if not a tad higher, so they are defiantly lower than they were). They were very hard/slow to tickle this afternoon (both) almost to the point where I didn't think they were going to, so I immediately thought I set them too low. However, as above once started I had gas running out the tickler on the right side anyway.

I guess my question is how can you get a slow tickle and stuck float symptom at the same time? If a float is stuck wouldn't it still leak just sitting there with the taps on, because it doesn't (only when running)?

I read a thread about trimming the gasket around the float pin, maybe I'll try that. Any other thoughts, I just don't want to be staring at them tonight thinking they look good to me.

Thanks
Trevor

Lindy said:

I read a thread about trimming the gasket around the float pin, maybe I'll try that.

Click to expand...

I would strongly advise you not to do that.: amal-overflow-problem-t14186.html#p169471

http://amalcarb.co.uk/optimising-mark-1 ... uel-levels

Thanks for directing me to that thread so quickly L.A.B., you might have diagnosed my problem and Alzheimer's at the same time. I pulled the bowls tonight and noticed that I had already trimmed the gasket around the pin like jaydee75, must have read to do that somewhere. Will order new gaskets tomorrow and give it another try next week, hopefully its that simple.

Thanks again.

Well I put some new gaskets in and my first problem of the year seems to be solved. I am at least the 2nd person to make this mistake, so hopefully the next guy learns from this. I trimmed the gaskets as per the following site: http://www.amr-of-tucson.com/carb_facts.html, but took a tiny bit too much off the right side.

Thanks again for the quick advice.

I understand that you found the float level too low after replacement of the needles with the viton type float needles.
What type of needles do you have ?
If you use the brass needles instead of the alu needles, you may end up with a float level that is too low.
This applies in particilar with a low quantity of fuel in the tank (low head pressure).
I had a similar problem with my Trident, and it took a lot of hassle to find out what was wrong.
It is possible that the same thing can happen with a Commando, so checking/adjusting the float level may help here too.