I haven’t had an opportunity to do much with the bikes lately, but I did start getting the carbs on the GSX-R taken apart.  I’m really hesitant to go too far until I get the shop manual for it…and at the moment all of my bike money is instead paying for daycare, swimming, dance, girl scouts, and every other activity for the kids.

Anyway, I managed to get three of the four bowls off.  The fourth has unfortunately turned into an opportunity to test out one of those tools guaranteed to remove stripped screws.

Toward the bottom of the picture, just below the fuel line, you can see the corrosion around the main jet on the last carburetor.  Other than that, these LOOK pretty clean, but I’m sure they’re not.

Does anyone know if you can just soak the entire rack of carbs in something for a few days to let the liquid penetrate all of the crevices prior to ultimate disassembly?  Acetone?  Too strong?  I think obviously I’d remove the vacuum seals and anything else that isn’t metal.  Any suggestions are much appreciated…I’m very much a newbie with engine parts, but I”m determined to quickly become knowledgable.

Hey – my first success with this project!  The throttles were completely stuck and wouldn’t budge.

After some careful persuasion, some WD40 and a pair of pliers, I finally got them to move.  After some more WD40 and manually opening and closing them about 30 or 40 times, they now move freely and spring back into the closed position as they should. 

As you can see from the picture, the two end throttles aren’t in alignment with the other two.  That’s because there’s a spring missing from each one and they flop around.  I have both of them (they fell out)…should be interesting trying to get them back into place.