Transparent Float Bowls

At this time since bike runs fine I wasn't aiming for any particular level but if one was way different from the other I'd have adjusted it. I did service these carbs a while back and checked floats were parallel to body when carb held upside down. Looking at front of the bowl the level is tilted even though bike is level as the carbs are tilted a bit. You can also see that main jet and idle jets are well submerged.

Beemerboff said:

Level looks a bit lower than you might achieve using other methods - what level were you aiming for?

Click to expand...

Your right, I'd have aimed for at least another 0.326 mm !!

I have found 1/2" down from the top with the float bowl removed works better than anything else I have tried, and these levels don't look far off from that with the bowls fitted. But that probablky depends on the state of tune of the rest of the carb.

A few guys have tried setting the level with a clear tube tapped into the bowl and the report the level nearer the gasket face in the centre of the bowl.

But whatever works for you - I have to climb a long, steep and winding driveway and on a cold morning the choke just cant raise enough fuel to get me up the drive if the level is on the low side!
I also have 800 carbs on a 1000 cc motor so the outlets from the slow running mixing chamber are probably smaller than optimum too, I will leave it to Kenny to tell you how much smaller the 800cc ones are than the 1000.

But the dimension in his previous post isn't far out!

There was a smell of petrol in the shed yesterday evening, tracked it down to a weep from right hand carb, enough to moisten side of bowl but not enough to cause a drip. Turned out float bowl had a little indentation type of casting mark. I couldn't see any purpose to it and a new gasket had no effect so I gave the bowls sealing surface a light sanding by rubbing it in circular motion on fine sandpaper on a piece of level glass. I think it would only have been a tenth of a mm but result is no weep and doesn't seem to have had any noticeable effect on the spring tension when fitting.

For the price they are charging, you would have expected them to be right without the need for sanding...

These little indentations are on the other bowl too but no leaks there so not sure what was happening. Not sure if this pic is good enough but they seem to be a deliberate part of the design but makes no sense to me as the metal bowls have no such marks.

With holidays and other things the bike sat unused for last 3 or 4 weeks, took it out today and found float bowls almost empty. Presumably this is the normal phenomenon which leads to bikes parked up for years with taps on having gummed up carbs. Then again looking at the angle of the photo it could be that the bike is parked vertically up the side of a wall and its all drained back into the tank.

How resilient is that material to the hefty swing of a boot when the float gets stuck?