Monday, August 19, 2024

Honda V4 files

As I prepare for a few weeks on the road, I changed out a couple main
jets in my Sabre's carb yesterday. I have found a neat trick for
reseating the carbs in their boots.

Those of you that are already good at this can ignore this thread,
and to anyone who is dreading working on their carbs, maybe this will
help one day.

For some reason Mike and I got confused about what was supposed to
be in my carbs and we put 128s in the front carbs where it is supposed to
be 120s. So I got an early start yesterday (11am, well not too
early).

I was doing the work in Mike's back lot in Downtown LA. I was
allowing 2 or three days if necessary, but I've been working on these
bikes so much lately that I find the work going a lot more
smoothly....Hence the carbs were off the bike in 35 minutes, and Mike
had just last month rebuilt the carbs with all new orings, so the job
was simply pull two float bowls and change two main jets.

I leisurely put them back in in 2 hours, but the trick to
reseating the carbs is......

first cock the rubber carb insulator/tubes away from each other, then Put them in the front head's boots first.
That leaves you with the rear carbs about a 1/4 inch above going in the rear boot openings for the rear heads. To get the rear carbs in those boot
requires a bunch of pressure on both carbs at once, while working the
rubber boots upward (first one and then the other).

Before you do any of this be sure to slather the carb boots with
grease to make things slip easier. Folks are telling me that you can break that airbox with too much pressure. Once the carbs are pushing on the rubber boot use some sort of tool with a 90* bend on the end to work the rubber boots over the end of the carb.



What I have done is stick a 4 ft long 2X4 under the frame
rail just behind the frame neck, then put a large deep socket between the
2X4 and the back edge of the aluminum air box mount. So now you can
pry down on the carb rack by pushing on the 2X4. But easier yet is to
place about a 5 lb weight on the end of the 2X4 to apply that pressure
for you. Too much weight here is a hindrence, not a help.

Now you can go about working the carb boots up over the top lip of
the two carbs.