I read online today about doing a carb cleaning.

Basically I took off the tank, and feed straight Sea Foam into the fuel line. It ran good for a while, then started to bog down. After it stalled out I put the tank back on and had a rough time running the bike. I was able to run it with almost full choke, but the crap coming out of the exhaust was crazy! Lots of black/white smoke - bike stalled about 10 times, and would stall anytime I tried to give it throttle.

After going through the start/stop routine for a while the bike finally started to run clean again. I think I really cleaned out some gunk in the works because I took the bike around the block and it really seems to be smoother and faster! I was having a real problem with a warm bike and low RPM's. Haven't sync'd the carbs yet, but this cleaning exercise seems to have done some good so I thought I'd pass it along. I'll probably do it again in the near future to really clean things up.

Anyone else ever do this?

 

never tried that. the usual process is to unhook a vacuum line and stick it down in the bottle while idling. it'll suck the seafoam into the carb bodies.

i suppose you method gets the seafoam through the jets

 

yeah ive heard of guys boostin of this b4, if your carbs arent tooo bad then its fine, but if your carbs are gummed, your just putting salt into a open wound, im not going to sit here and tell you it was wrong hey if it worked then more power to you brother, just you know someones kz thats been sitting longer than ive been around doing that trick prob. wont help them out

 

Why would you say that? Why would putting Sea Foam straight into the fuel line make anything worse? Seems like it could only dissolve a bunch of crap and get it out...??

 

and get it out? wheres it going to go if the sum a gun is gummed up? listen like i said its cool it worked for you but ive seen it happen to guys and nothing happens, so they have to pull the rack off anyway and then get more sea foam, and then clean it out, it just seems like extra work you wouldnt have to do if you just pulled the rack off and did it, to each theirown, if it worked cool man ,props

 

Well I thought it would get it out the gummed up stuff by disolving any varnish in the jets/carb then blowing it out the exhaust as a by-product of the combustion process.

Just a much easier way of cleaning the carbs a bit until that rainy weekend when I have time put the bike on the stand and remove the rack. I've never done carbs like these before and I'm sure a rebuild would really improve things - but I'm also worried that I may incapacitate my ride by doing something wrong! I don't want to be without my bike at this time of the year.

Any recommendations for rebuild kits?

 

if someones carb has been sitting too long they'll have to tear it down btu seafoam products are still some of the best to use to clean it.

runnign seafoam as ad adative to the fuel for half a tank will also help remove carbon deposites from the cylinders and can really make a difference in the fuel burn

 

Ok, not arguing about the sea foam, never used it. I prefer the tried and true disassembly and cleaning. Then do the sync. Just my preferred method.