CB400/4 ENGINE STRIP, ASSESSMENT AND REBUILD BY JULIE - NOW COMPLETE

[Nurse Julie]

The carb rebuild………A step too far for me 

Well, the carbs are reassembled, at last. These carbs were in the most disgusting state both internally and externally and I'm amazed they were functioning at all.

These proved to a major headache for me in the end. It was all so simple in theory, strip carbs completely, every single component, taking photos and making notes, send appropriate parts for re zincing, clean all other parts thoroughly by hand and the bodies in the ultra-sonic cleaner, re assemble using said photos and notes.

Oh boy, how wrong I was. I was fine re assembling everything in the top of the bodies, the throttle arms, internal and external, the holders, slides etc. In the bottom of the bodies all the jets, float valves and needles, floats etc were easy as I had done them in the past.

The problem came when I attempted to assemble everything on the mounting plate and attach it to the corresponding parts on the bodies. Even with my photos, which by this time I admitted were useless and my notes with a few measurements of nuts and bolts, I could just not make sense of any of the parts I needed to put where. I sat there just looking at them with a total mental block, with absolutely no logic and getting in a right strop. I was even emailing Gerben, who was fantastic but I was at a total blank. So Trig did them for me. Once he had finished, I looked at them and couldn’t understand why it had been beyond me, it all made perfect sense seeing them together.

Anyway, I then carried on with the bits I can do, I have bench synced them,  re set the floats at 21mm, set the mixture screws at 2 turns out to start with and adjusted the fast idle speed adjuster.
I just need to fit them back on the bike and I’m ready to fire her up.

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[UK Pete]

They look amazing

You give it your best and done 90% of the work so well done youy

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[K2-K6]

Nice work however you got there, delegation is a very underrated skill when used at the right time!

Can't wait to see the start up results,  the suspense is killing us 

[JamesH]

Wow, beautiful work Julie. Nice that Trigger helped do the last 1% to get you over the line 

[Nurse Julie]

Wow, beautiful work Julie. Nice that Trigger helped do the last 1% to get you over the line 

Trig will say he did 99% of everything James . I say Trig did 100% of the 38% I couldn't do 

[paul G]

Well done Julie just need to get out on it now. Dont forget the pictures

[mike the bike]

Those carbs look fantastic.   There's loads of small stuff to be zinc plated on them, it's a wonder you've got everything back from the platers, and done to a high standard.
You must tell us the name of the company that did the work.

[Nurse Julie]

Those carbs look fantastic.   There's loads of small stuff to be zinc plated on them, it's a wonder you've got everything back from the platers, and done to a high standard.
You must tell us the name of the company that did the work.

Thanks Mike.
Allenchrome in Pocklington do all our re zincing. Didn't loose one single bit during plating. I'm really pleased with the way they look now, they were disgusting. I even had the start of a nest of some little critter in one of the nooks of a body. Other than the zincing, the bodies went in the U/S cleaner and the brass bits were cleaned. I already had the bowls painted and the tops polished anyway.

Edit...forgot to say don't send the big butterfly thingy, where the throttle cables attach to, to the platers, the 6 alloy rivets holding the 2 plates together disintegrate during the pickling process. I rummaged through Trigs boxes of bits and bobs and found some perfect size rivetts to repair it.

[mike the bike]

Thanks Julie.   I've got a spare set of carbs so I can refurbished them sometime.

[Rozabikes Tim]

So impressed Julie. Carbs in my mind are the hardest bit of any on these bikes to strip and bebuild.

[Moorey]

They look very nice. Do you do any prep work before sending them for re zincing.

[Nurse Julie]

So impressed Julie. Carbs in my mind are the hardest bit of any on these bikes to strip and bebuild.

They are a bit of a jigsaw Tim. I suppose it's one of those jobs where it all makes sense the more often you do them......but I won't be doing any again in a hurry, I almost had to start taking Valium !!!

[Nurse Julie]

They look very nice. Do you do any prep work before sending them for re zincing.

De grease and then wire brush every single part to clean all the s**t out of the threads and under bolt heads, in nooks and crannies etc. We actually do the de greasing in a cement mixer (easier this way with the quantity we have to do each time) with traffic film remover, fairy liquid, hot water and builders sand.

[Moorey]

Does this just clean them or does the sand also remove the original plating. How long in the mixer roughly.?

[Nurse Julie]

Does this just clean them or does the sand also remove the original plating. How long in the mixer roughly.?

No, this process cleans all the dirt/ grease etc off of the parts. Put in cement mixer fir about 20 mins.The wire brushing, preferably electric wire wheel, removes any rust and then when the platers put the parts through the pickling process, that's what removed the old zinc. You can either have them 'wired' for zincing if only a few parts or if a few Kg they put them in a tumbler all together. Tumbling is cheaper if you have a load to do.