Kawasaki Motorcycle Forums banner

Cleaning carbs on your old school 6r. complete writeup w/ pics!

158K views 153 replies 77 participants last post by  CeeDeeLight 
#1 ·
did a carb cleaning. took pics. i didnt need to take the diaphragms off so this is only the gas side if you will... but if your needles are all gummy and what not.. you need to remove the covers on the other side and pull the assy out and make sur eyou clean those needles up. so.

also... this is how i would do it. not saying i'm 100% right.. and if you play with your carbs you are responsible lol. This method has worked for me many times.

First, remove whatever you need to to see all the tank bolts. Then remove the gas tank bolts.


Disconnect the fuel petcock after turning it to the off position.


Disconnect the carburetor fuel inlet hose


Disconnect hoses going to the airbox and the screws holding the top of the airbox on


REmove the lower part of the airbox by removing the screws holding it down and whatever hoses are attached


Disconnect the carb vent hoses


Disconnect TPS on right side of carbs (sitting down on bike)


Loosen clamps and pull carbs out of boots. I would cover the holes with paper towels or something immediately to keep things from falling in there by accident


Remove throttle cable bracket to make it easier to take the cables off, then disconnect the cables


Disconnect the choke cable, pull it out of the bracket or some bikes just unbolt the bracket that holds it


Pull the carbs off. Sit down somewhere with a can of carb cleaner and get ready to work


Loosen and remove all the float bowl covers. They can strip easy, so i would recommend using vice grips to loosen them all up initially. works like a charm



These are the parts of the carb that interest you. If your bike isnt idling, the pilot jet is prob dirty. if its sputtering at the top end, check the main jet. If it floods or something, check the float needle as there may be crud binding it up


Remove the pin holding the float in, something small helps.


Remove the screw holding the float needle valve and remove if necessary... sometimes they are pressed in and not meant to be removed.


Check the pilot jet after removing it. See if you can see light through it. 2 of mine were showing no light , hence the sputtering.


Soak everything good and remember what went where. Sometimes there are different jets in the inner and outer banks and you don't want to mix those up



Blow some air through everything and reassemble. I cleaned my carbs in the little places with q-tips soaked in carb cleaner. that seems to work well with the tight spaces


Put everything back together and drink a beer
 
See less See more
20
#13 ·
Nice write up.Regarding the float bowl screws,when i installed my Dynojet kit some of the screws were really tight and wouldnt undo,even with a decent screwdriver,result being chewed up heads.I cut a groove in them with my Dremel and replaced them with allen bolts.That way if i needed to change the main jet size i could remove the float bowls without having to take the carbs off completely.




Andy UK
 
#66 ·
Like everyone has said - great writeup! Did this last night and can't wait to see how these puppies purr.

I got most of my float screws out without much problem but I stripped one beyond belief (and yes, I was trying vice grips and a good quality philips at the same time). I thought about dremelling out the stripped screw but I ended up using a screw-extraction tool. For you Canadians, I used a cheap set from Canadian Tire. This tool works magic and I removed the stripped screw with the power of my cordless drill. If you work on older cars/bikes, you need this tool!



On a side note, don't soak your needles in carb cleaner in plastic disposable cups... they melt! Ya ya... that was a dumbass move on my part... so sue me. I ended up using the wife's small glass cups from the kitchen. Shhhh. Don't tell.
 
#14 ·
Here's another tip about those carburetor screws, taken from this site http://faq.ninja250.org/wiki/Cleaning_the_carbs_1

A note on screwdrivers: Motorcyclist magazine, in its May, 2007 edition, had a tech tip for Japanese carburetor screws. Take a close look at the photo above while you read this. This is quoted directly from the magazine, and no one from the board has tried these products, but we do consider this a reliable source:

* It is quite often difficult to get the Phillips screws out of the carburetor float bowl. Those and a lot of other screws on Japanese products...are specifically Japanese Industrial Standard JIS 4633B-3/1991 and DIN/ISO standard 5260. Note the dot in one corner of the cross formed by the slots... The Japanese-style Phillips screwdrivers are available from Ames Supply Company and Katun... Using the normal American/European #1 or #2 Phillips screwdriver in a screw head with the dot on it will most likely strip the head on the first try.
i noticed the same thing on my ex500, i almost stripped the first one i tried, then i tried looking on homedepot.com to see if they carried those japanese screwdrivers, they didnt. Then i realized to try the one that came in the kawi toolkit. It worked perfectly. Any screws with the little dot in the corner means its the japanese style screw (most of the ones on my bike are)
 
#15 ·
I didnt know that,guess you learn something new everyday.I just thought that there were either phillips or the pozi drive screws,i certainly wouldnt have thought of using the toolkit driver as i personally think bike toolkits are generally crap quality.Apart from the toolkits that come with KTM`s.Cheers.

Andy UK
 
#16 ·
i did a complete teardown of a dirty ass set of carbs for this bike last night.. and expect it to take you a couple hours to clean a set thoroughly... if you never removed the air screws... those caps gotta come out as well... then remov all the choke plungers... doin it right takes a little while. anyone used this guide yet?
 
#19 ·
if you follow the perimeter of the cover, there is a little jet pressed into the body of the carbs... the cover has a little piece of plastic extending from it to cover that up... the o-ring fits in the groove. post a picture and i'll tell you where they go
 
#24 ·
Going back to pic #4, if you remove the 2 black rubber stoppers to gain access to the 2 10mm bolts inside the airbox you don't have to disassemble the entire air box. Just remove the aforementioned 2 and the 3 bolts across the bottom. Just don't unsrew them completely out of the airbox threads. After removing the bottom 3, you can loosen the 2 interior bolts just enough that the airbox will lift off the carbs. Be careful removing your socket and extension as to not knock your socket off. :eek:

Just saved some wrench turning.......:)
 
#34 ·
I just did this to my '00 ZX-6r. Now that I'm finished, I find that the throttle is sticking when I rev it (not heavily, but at least 1.5-2 seconds between when i release the rev and when it returns to idle). I did everything correctly (or so I thought!), but this wasn't happening before the procedure.

I read that maybe my cables are too curved? Maybe there's not enough slack? Too much slack? Someone please help me, I am lost :-( I want my baby back!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top