Carb cleaning "How To"?

Hi all,

I'm brand new to motorcycles and I just purchased a nice condition 1985 Maxim-X. I'm pretty excited. There are two issues with the bike, though, that dropped it to my price range. The first is that the carbs are running rough. For this, I had to take the PO's word for it, because it sounds fine to me. But the bike has been sitting in his garage for more than a year with no use. So, I'd like to pull the carbs and give them a good cleaning.

Does anyone know of a good online "How To" or tutorial for cleaning the XJ carbs? I have done a lot of searching on the site, but I haven't found what I'm looking for, though there are several good hints and tricks that will be helpful.

The other problem has to do with the headlight, but I'll make another post for that issue.

Thanks!

 

Welcome to the site - take a look at these

Clean enrichment circuit
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=8918.html

Clean carbs
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=2908.html

Carb Sync
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=2132.html

Bench sync
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=6366.html

Fuel filter
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=6352.html

Clutch adj
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic ... tment.html

Float Height
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic ... t+dry.html

Valve clearance check and adjustment:
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/vie...14827.html

 

Congrats on becoming an XJ owner!

Take a look through this thread for all of the information you will need to clean your carbs: http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=2908/

All the best!

 

Bill beat me to it.

 

Except that pictures would be nice, and someone apparently posted pictures of Mikuni carbs in Rick's thread, but then deleted them because the process was written for Hitachi carbs.

Schmuckaholic posted in this thread a link to a nice PDF guide with pictures of the process for Mikuni BS33 carbs. I'm currently in the process myself on my Maxim-X.

 

Excellent! Thanks for the links. I'm looking forward to getting greasy this week.

 

Both types are very similar in the basics. The Minkuni use a slide arrangement for enrichment instead of vertical needle type jets. The air jets are placed differently too. Schmuck's write up is excellent as is Rick's.

Look at both and you will have a real good idea of what's going on.

Biggest thing is to go slow - work organized and you will do fine.

 

Also; be sure to have a look in that rear brake asap: http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=15874.html

 

And at the very bottom of this thread:

http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=14692.html

you have some great references to other posts of value, including the very visually-oriented Mikuni threads, thanks to user Alive:

http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=3690.html

 

Thanks for all the great threads. Everything came apart very nicely despite the varnish all over the parts. I'm waiting for some float bowl gaskets, and I'll be puttin' it all back together. I appreciate all the links. Great info!