Carb Cleaner: to use or not to use?

I've heard some conflicting recommendations from friends and online about carb cleaner. some suggest running it through, but also I hear it might burn up some important rubber in my carbs (?)

so what's the word? I want to clean my carbs a bit and I know I should take them apart and clean/rebuild, but for now....

 

it's fine, just don't put them in a carb cleaner bath for hours. I actually put my rubber parts in a WD40 bath. The carb cleaner will evaporate before anything bad happens.

 

I've seen here it is 'bad' to put anything in your gas tank but gas. I was thinking of putting some carb/fule injector cleaner in to my gas just on GP, would this be a bad idea? I use my bike to commute to work just about everyday, so I am going through a couple tanks of gas a week, not including joy riding on the weekend. (I've ridden 1,000 miles in 3 weeks).

 

wait a minute, James, you mean put it in your gas?! Hell No that's not ok. Doc the injection cleaner wouldn't hurt, but if it's running good don't touch it. Get a fuel stabilizer instead to preserve today's crapy gas

 

James; here's the problem. Running carb or injector cleaner (added to your gas, or "blown in") through carbs only works if the passages are open enough to allow the solvent-laced gas through. It will do NOTHING for a clogged passage; which is usually the case in these carbs.

The primary concern in regard to ruining seals is dipping the carbs because the throttle shaft seals are "trapped" in the rack and can be ruined by soaking in carb cleaner.

Doing what you're asking about probably won't hurt anything; but it also won't likely do any good.

 

Yea it wont do anything, and if your going to spray the carbs without removing all of tye rubber seals, use brake cleaner instead of carb cleaner, its essentially the same thing, but it wont damage rubber seals & o rings. I only ever use carb cleaner when what im cleaning is 100% metal, it has eaten away at rubber and some plastics on me in the past whereas brake cleaner wont.

And assuming you have crystallized deposits in your float bowls, freeing those up without taking then apart may just clog up your jets even worse.

 

I use a carb dip and leave them in for a couple nights if need be. Prior to doing that, I dis-assemble the carb completely....everything comes off or out, and only the metal parts end up in the basket. The diaphragm/piston assembly does not go in the dip and is cleaned by hand. I have YET to have any part that doesn't get thoroughly cleaned. I have had some jets that have been globs or hardened dried black stuff and the metal is not even visible. After a couple days in the dip they are nice and clean and all the holes are clear. I love the stuff. I use the gallon can of carb dip from NAPA.

I also have a 5 gal bucket of similar stuff though I can't remember where that is from. My dad got that for his VW Beetle engine restoration and gave it to me when he was done.

FWIW

Dave Fox