Wet setting floats kicking my butt

SO finally got my carbs cleaned up and put back together, but wet setting the floats is killing me. Any pro tips from the masters out there?

 

Sure.

A few things that cut down on the headaches:

-"cycle" the float a couple ~three times before taking your reading. By that I mean, fill the bowl until it shuts off; drain; refill; drain; then take a reading. Gives the valve and seat a chance to get acquainted before you put them in the spotlight.

-don't over-adjust. If you bend the tang enough to know you bent it, you probably went too far. Think "nudge" or "tweak" not bend. (For me, this is easy-- I'm so old, I started out my "IT" career fixing mechanical adding machines and calculators.)

-put a fine, accurate mark (fine-tip Sharpie) on the bowl at exactly where the level needs to be, and work to that.

-be sure the whole rack is level in all directions; I use a 9" carpenters' level myself.

 

Oh and will you please put your bike info in your sig.

Are you fighting the Hitachi fight, or are you a fellow Mikuni sufferer? How's a guy to know?

 

Ugh. It's there. But isn't showing. I haven't messed with it enough to fix it yet.

I have Hitachi. Sorry. 82 xj750. I will try again tomorrow. Got too frustrated with it tonight.

 

Have you seen this yet?

http://www.xj4ever.com/setting%20fuel%20levels.pdf

If you haven't it may help.

 

Go to the menus in the upper left.

Select "my account."

Then, in the new menu that will appear there, under Information, select "my profile information."

One of the items that you will see is a "My Signature" block, where you can input up to 255 characters.

Then click "save changes" down at the bottom.

 

See, it's in there, but I don't see it.

 

Also, yes I have seen that. It's got great info, but I end up chasing it back and forth

 

RE: your sig.

No, it's not. Try accessing it from a PC and not your phone. You're viewing basic info, NOT the place where you have to put things to have them show in your sig. You're not into where you can modify it, just view it.

 

I set it up on a pc. It's just easier to screenshot on my phone. I changed it AGAIN just now, still nothing.

 

Wait, just found the problem. There's a check box that needs to be checked just under the quick reply box on the forum pages. Derp

 

Oh looky there. Pop some more info in, like mileage and any mods we need to know about. Look at mine.

Now then, you wanna talk avatar?

 

Lol one step at a time there hoss. I'll elaborate on it sole more tomorrow. But no mods. Just stock, more or less.

 

Hey if you look real close, Duck Dodgers' "topknot" has a Yamaha tuning fork logo in it. I built it pixel-by-pixel and you can't see the bloody thing.

Good man; stock bikes are much easier to get running right. You'll get there; patience and meticulous work are the keys. Mikunis are even more precise than Hitachis (I have both) so a lot of us have been there.

Chill. Come back tomorrow.

 

Duck Dodgers. That's a throwback from my childhood. Love it.

 

Still having a hard time with this. I can't seem to get the carbs to stop flooding. I have chased overfilling through 3 carbs and it just seems to go back and forth. Once I get one to stop overflowing, the next one does. Any suggestions on where to set the floats to start?

 

search dry setting floats.
then see if there might be deep scratches on the float tang where it contacts the little pin of the float valve, bad enough to cause it to stick there

 

Thanks! Didnt think to search that. At least that gives me a starting point

 

What kind of float kit did you buy?

If it's the K&L kit, this is a very common problem. They just won't seat correctly, and never will. I hate to say it, but if you've gotta buy new float needles and seats.

Some people probably get luck with them, I didn't....

I ended up getting my money back, but only after I spent the week driving myself crazy.

 

That little pin Polock talked about is mounted on a spring inside the needle, sometimes the spring is finished or weak and the pin tends to stick in the needle on a random basis.

You may be due for new float needles.

 

I did get new needles, but they were eBay specials. I'll try resetting the floats dry in that area and see what that gets me. If not, I boiled the old needles with the rest of the carbs and I will give them a shot

 

Good idea to try the oldies. If they work better, then you know the issue. I'd get new ones from Len.

 

Try Chacal for new float needle. Mine worked fine upon replacement.

 

Starting to get really frustrated with this. Problem is that I don't know if the needles are the problem. I'm at the point where i am ready to send them off to someone and have them set them for me. I Get one set perfectly, then drain them all to fix another one and when I set it up again, the one that was perfect the last time pisses gas until I tap/ smack the bowl with the handle of the screwdriver I am using to open the drain screws. Seriously, it cant be this complicated. I switched the new needles out for the ones that were in the bike when I bought it. Still chasing the levels around back and forth. I also have a very hard time getting the fuel to travel down the feed line sometimes and other times it runs down like it was running down an open hose. I am so frustrated I cant think of whats going on. I am usually very mechanically inclined, but I grew up in a fuel injected world. Carbs are like Greek to me.

 

there's someway to adjust how far the floats can hang down when the bowls are empty. without it the floats go so far down they push the needle sideways while trying to come up.
this sounds like what you have going on.
i don't know the official setting but if you let the float hang all the way down then push it up with your finger there should be no binding as the float starts up

 

I assume youre talking about the tab that rests on one of the poles to keep the float from going too low, right? There doesnt seem to be any binding at all through any level of travel on the float. But how could I possible know?

 

Yet another day with multiple failed attempts. It seems like the levels will not be consistent from one carb to the next. Is that possible? I start them all out at 17.5 mm and they all need to be adjusted up or down and no 2 are alike. WHAT IS GOING ON?!?

 

The little tangs that stop them from going too low are very important. Basically they need to be bent toward the retaining arm so that the lower resting place will allow fuel into the carbs, and not much more.

I'm still a cheerleader for the whole bad float needles hypothesis. The K&L needles had perfect action and I had zero problems with binding or sealing when the bowls were off. As soon as everything was closed up, they got screwy.

 

Have you done a float test on the floats, themselves? If a float is drying out, and then, filling up with fuel, it will never shut the needle valve.

Pour about 1 or 2 cups of GAS into a clear glass container, like your kitchen, 2 cup measuring cup! (Word of Warning, SWMBO, gets REALLY PISSED when you do that, so don't do it...)

Dry the float out for about 30 minutes, or blow it dry with air.

Then, set it in the gas bath, as if it were going to sit in the float bowl. You can tie some mono-filament through the pivot tunnel, and drape it over the lip of the cup.

The floats should, well, Float! If they go completely under the gas, then they are toast, and hit up Len for new/used but good, ones!

This will eliminate another mystery.

Hope this helps.

 

I'll try the floats today as well as trying another set of needles I have abs see if that makes a difference. If not, Idk what I'll do.

 

It sounds to me like you're DRY-setting them and then wet-checking them.

That won't work. The "dry" setting (the 17.5mm thing) is just to get you in the ballpark. Then you need to individually WET-adjust each one so that it brings the fluid to a proper level in that carb, as measured using the clear tube held next to the side of the carb. They most likely will all end up being slightly different, measured "dry."

 

The aftermarket needles and seats seem to have fixed the problem. They are all just about even with each other and no overflowing. I want going to use the seats because the screens didn't snap on the bottom, but 3 of the 4 oe seats wouldn't hold the screens anyway. So I just put them at the bottom of the wells and reset to 17.5. All within 1 mm of perfect. Now to wrestle then back on the bike

 

Seen this? needle seat polishing

 

Fitz, Yes and no. I wanted the dry setting (though I didn't know what to call it before the term was told to me) to give me a starting point. So once I had something to get me started, I could wet set them. They all needed to be set 16-16.5mm from the gasket surface.

Andy, I had not seen that. I think I will piece together a better kit from chacal and put together the spare set I was given with the bike and swap during the winter. It was much too aggravating to put them back on the bike to do it again any time this month.

 

But again, you just said you set them all to 17.5mm and now they're within 1mm of perfect.

Dry setting is where you do all that goofy measuring with the carbs upside down and try to measure the float height.

Wet setting is where you fill the bowl with fuel with a clear tube attached to the drain and read what the gas inside is actually doing. THIS is the important adjustment; where the fuel level ends up. That's why we call it "wet setting." You keep coming back to the dry measurement. It means nothing. It just gets you close enough to wet-set.

 

I thought i had said that. What I meant to say was that with the starting line of 17.5, I was within 2 mm of the 3mm mark on the wet wet. So i went back, adjusted the floats 1mm (yes, I know this is dry), and rechecked with the tube and was within spec on all 4. So, yes, I was measuring dry, but only so I didn't overdo it on the adjustments (which it is stupid easy to do). I guess what I am saying is before they went back on the bike, I verified them with the tube and all were good.

Also, side note. The bike runs now, much better then before. It still surges a little, but I think I will be able to solve this with the next rebuild (on the spare set). I took it for a good 15 minute ride to see how it did. The idle hangs a bit, but power is muuuuch better then before and idle is rock solid.

 

If it's down to a hanging idle, then you're ready to vac sync and do some fine mixture tuning.

(Valves are in spec, right?)

 

Yes, valves are in spec. (You were right on that, remember?)