Carb Glory Story....

Well I felt I needed to share my feeling on completley tearing down and rebuilding the carbs on my xj650 maxim. Thanks to this site I got the "courage" to actually do it this winter against the best advice from the old guys around me...and they grew up wrenching on this era and earlier bikes. The overall theme was, if it has carbs, its 20 years old and runs ok DON'T TOUCH EM! My curious mechanical nature led me to prove them wrong.

History: I bought my bike from a friend who rode it for a year after buying it off a older gentleman who wasn't allowed to ride it per his ball and chain. He did however put alot of work into keeping it in relatively good condition for not riding it ever. My friend is pretty mechanically inclined and replaced the clutch on it shortly after purchasing it and just rode it with very basic maintainance.

After the winter of sitting in the barn I bought it for a mere $750 dollars. I was naive and excited to get a good deal on a bike I knew was at the very least rideable for a summer, and that is what I did.

She never quite purred at idle but never refused to start unless it was noob initiated, i.e. running out of gas, forgot about that "reserve thingy", too excited to get to the dates house I forgot to turn the key off and just yanked it out in the on position.

On really hot days she displayed some tendencies that I attributed to carb voodoo. Symptoms such as Hanging idle after a long cruise, creeping idle when hot, rough idle when idling on a hot day.

But she sure did scream at WOT =) So I was happy for a summer.

But this winter I vowed to fuel inject or clean those things to a heavenly standard, inside and out. Financial matters deemed more elbow grease than money was going into the bike this winter and my carb journey began.

 

what was the outcome? we all want to know

 

Yeah in my noobness ive had my maxims carbs off and apart 10 times, at least it ran better every time.

How does she run now? Read those plugs

 

i am tearing mine apart tonight and i am kinda scared but i will have help within reach if i start to mess up

 

I know mine need doing, but I'm gonna wait until winter...the bike runs pretty good now, I'd hate to mess up an entire riding season (mechanically, I'm an idiot) trying to get that last little boost...