OK i recently bought my first motorcycle. It is a 78 Honda CB550 and its a little rough around the edges. My friend suggested I clean the carbs. He was going to help me but now we have both gone back to different schools so now I need help doing this. So if anyone can explain this process to me that would be awsome.

Thanks

 

The way I do it is to take them apart one by one (unfortunately you have to repeat this procedure 4 times). Take the fuel bowl off and the top cover where the diaphram is (depending on if you have CV or the direct control). Unscrew the jets, blow carb cleaner through all of the holes, scrub residue out of the fuel bowl, check the diaphram for cracks. Sometimes compressed air is also necessary to blow out the jets. Look carefully where the air comes out when you blow it in a particular hole. Some of the holes are absolutely miniscule so make sure you identify and clean all of them. Put them back together, and make sure you lube the choke mechanism while you're at it.

My brother usually just eyeballs the synchronization, and we haven't had any problems with bikes not running smoothly yet. If you're really OCD you can get a special set of guages that you can hook up when the bike is running to check for synchronization.

Oh, and be careful about spraying the carb cleaner and compressed air into the carbs, you never know where the air might be redirected and where it will spew gunk and carb cleaner (into your eye ).

Good luck!

 

I just took apart my cv carbs and put them back together, now I need to reinstall it on the bike tomorrow.

It was much easier than I thought, I was scared thinking it would be complicated.

I asked around on the ninja 500 forums and they had tutorials up there with pictures so I followed that, but I imagine the process would be similar for most carbs.

I would suggest you acquire the service manual either by purchasing it or finding a pdf online.

I'm sure your bike has a good online community and you can ask them how it's done.

Good luck, it's simpler than you think. Just need to remember not to loose the small bits and put it back together the same way.

I searched for cb550 carbs and found this link, seems to be a short version of carb cleaning but it's a nice start.

http://www.somemonkey.com/?cat=14

 

thanks alot! this will help a lot. I have some repair manuals that came with the bike but there not extremly descriptive.