FMH LIVE: Carburetors!

Hey guys, welcome to this Fix My Hog event presented by Haynes Manuals. First off, big shout out to Haynes Manuals for hooking us up with all our manuals for all our projects here. I can't recommend these guys good enough for any project that you do have going on obviously. When we're tinkering around on our bikes and anything that we might get drawn into, a lot of times we Google stuff. I mean, let's face the facts but having that manual on hand can be one of your best tools in your toolbox moving forward. So highly recommend going out there and grabbing one of these manuals, making sure you have all the references. As you can see a lot of our videos that we produce that's our number one go-to for torque specs or even electrical work. It can help if you're adding on, on the spike that we did we added on a turn signal module cancel later we had to reference that manual. So thanks to Haynes. Make sure you guys grab a a nice little manual and decorate your garage a little bit more with that. Also, before we jump into this event this month here, we've got a nice little promo going on for you guys. So I'm one to carry and if you're ever looking to find a new holster for your bike, it could be challenging. There's some items that are so discrete but we teamed up with CrossBreed Holsters. And if you want a chance to get in that sweepstakes make sure you hit that banner or go on the website as well. And yeah, you've got til, I got to check on this one. Make sure you got to enter by February 19th, Wednesday, February 19th, to win that. It's a nice little module holster. If you've got a street glide, road glide or anything a bagger style, nice little fit right there into your bag. So make sure you guys check that out and register for that as well. And I'm going to take a deep breath. This has been a challenging event to get to. We had some issues with the bike in, in here. Right here we've got our 2000 sport, so we did quite a few modifications to it, a lot that you'll see coming out of the next few months for you guys. We definitely took this in a stock component and switched it over. And today we're going to be running through on the carburetor and fine tuning that with what we did here. So this was originally an 883 and it was bored out to a 1200. So we did toss an S&S Shorty G on this one and an S&S muscle air cleaner that we're going to be installing on here. and then we're going to get to fine tuning it. So this event is going to be good for you guys. If you're looking to swap out carburetors, get rid of that CVE OEM carburetor on your older style bike. And if you're going into something more performance-wise and deck in and out that way, this will definitely bring you some information on that. So I do have a few questions I'm going to get to at the end of this event and kind of a run through of what we're going to be doing. Be touching base on the OEM carburetor that we did pull off of this and the original components, and then what we did and going in and starting this beast up and we'll be fine tuning it all the way through. So I'll take a deep breath and get down to the nitty and gritty of this. All right. Only guys know these and nowadays we've got a lot of EFI systems out there, fuel injection systems. So you don't see many carburetors on our newer style bikes but obviously these are out on the road quite a bit now and this is the CVO OEM that we did take off. Major difference with the performance S&S Shorty that we have on there right now and then also this OEM is that there's a constant velocity meaning depending on the altitude that you're running through if you're going cross country. Obviously, we're here in Chicago. You're not going to have as much density or altitude adjustment, but if you're out in Denver or even Arizona, there's going to be some adjustment with your carburetor. So this does automatically adjust for that and compensates which is a nice little feature, but the problem is you can't fine tune as much as we can with these. And reason being obviously, we put a performance one on this one just so we can fine tune and get a little bit more roar out of the spike after doing a few other upgrades with our exhaust as well. So a lot of you guys have already seen this but just to reiterate, it's just an accelerator right here. We've got our pump in the bottom and then obviously right here, our neato with our constant velocity, up and down our breather. Can you zoom on that one, Zach? My main man Zach back there. Good deal. And then we've got, this is a Shorty G and obviously, these are all labeled on the side right here. Shorty G that one says E. Now obviously, huge, huge difference in these carburetors, a lot more twisting turning bolts for free adjustment, couple items on here that I want to obviously point out that are huge. Here's our drain bolt accelerator pump axis, our fuel line going into our bowl, got our accelerator adjustment on this side, our main air and fuel mixture right here, enriched inner lever and then also events and overflow around here as well. And it's . I want to point this out right now. So a lot of times when you're getting these, S&S does a great job and hook you up with a lot of different jets, a lot of different sizes. Some of these items, this is actually a big twin cover for your throttle and idle line on our Sportster here. It's a little bit taller so make sure using the right one, but these over flow lines make sure you're rounding it all the way through all the way to the bottom of your bike. Try not to interfere with any moving pieces as well and getting that down to the lowest point. So in the event that something is clogged and you're getting too much gas into your float ball, make sure you're running that out. And let's see, I really hook this thing up. And you're also getting, so we have an intermediate and main jet kit right here, similar to these. We actually pulled these off the E and I highly recommend. There's a lot of people out there that have drilled these through and it's not as precise as you will get with actually just ordering new jets all the way from the manufacturer. So I highly recommend just making sure that you do order new jets rather than trying to drill these out. And how to read these as well just so you guys know. You're going to see numbers right here on the side with the ID internal diameter of that. That's going to be a tough one to zoom on but that's a far-fetched mission right there. But the numbers are on the outside. So reference at S&S does give a great job of going through and itemizing all the circuits, you know intermediate circuit, idle circuit, all that good stuff in their manual. So as you're going through and trying to fine tune it, a lot of questions can be answered just in your manufacturer's technical brochures and all that fun stuff. So make sure you're referencing that along with with your manual. Now, we're not going to dive too much into the internals of these carburetors. There's tons of videos. If you want to check them out, fixmyhog.com and go over to that carburetor area and you'll get all those inside tips and tricks for you. But the last thing before we actually get to the bike here is the air cleaner. So this is the OEM that we did take off. Put it right here in front of me. And we did put a muscle one on this is compared to this one. Now, obviously when we're going to be tuning the bike, we do need to put the air cleaner on to make sure all the components around there and we're getting an accurate reading. So big difference in that as well. All right. Let me pop this up. I want to make sure we got our questions ready to go for when we get there and let's jump into the bike. Nice close view on this one. Holy Camoly. All right. As you can see, big difference with our OEM compared to our Shorty E on here. We will start actually, I want to address these because I know someone out there is going to be wondering what the heck I did with these. On our muscle air cleaner right there, these are actually going to the back gasket and preferably to make sure there was no intrusion or air leak sign here. Preferably, I like to put these right in the bottom. So knowing that we have a nice airtight seal on that backing plate. And one other thing I do want to mention as we go through and fine tuning this. If you get into your manifold and take manifold back here and you're putting in an entire new setup on your intake, make sure that everything is torqued down to spec and there're no air leaks. A lot of times what we'll do with the intake manifold is put a fueler gauge behind it to make sure that's nice and seated. A lot of times you can see a small little area but that gasket works its purpose that way. And then our insulator block right back here from the S&S right to our manifold. So make sure double, triple, quadruple check to make sure all those air leaks are nice and tight. Even putting the gaskets on the air, cleaner that even the smallest little leak will make a big difference in all of this and cause a lot of headache for you as well. So double, triple, quadruple check again. If I didn't say it once or twice before. All right. First thing we're going to do here, gasket. Gasket's going to go right on here and on this setup we've already installed our enrich inner lever Pull these. We got three bolts that are going to go into our throttle body. Do my best to give you a good view rather than seeing my back on this one. Come on now. All right, We're going to get our gasket on there making sure that we don't rupture anything. Take your time pushing this through. Come on buddy. All right, we got our gasket on the back here, push all through the threads. These bolts actually do have a shoulder allowing movement inside here. They're threaded on the inside of the backing plate. What we're doing obviously start everything by hand. I'm going to put these on making sure enrich inner plate or lever, sorry gets right in there. I'm going to get these starter by hand to make sure they're all good and going in clean and smooth. We already got these tools all prepped And we're not going to tighten this all the way down just yet. We'll go all the way around and get these nice and snug. And then I'm going to quarter turn on that. All right. Simple as that. Next thing we need to do is our crank case breathers right here. For this, I'm going to grab a fueler gauge, see if we have any space in between our head and backing plate right there. Reason being is obviously we don't want to put our bolts directly in, torque them down and have that backing plate cockeyed or off center. What that's going to do is put stress right here along our backend plate cray in a crack. Obviously, these bikes specifically the Sportsters are quite a bit of rattling and a lot of bouncing around on here compared to our newer bikes with the stabilizers and rubber mounts. So we want to make sure that everything is proportional shimmed. And just like an engine too, we shim, align our primary transmission engine as well. All right. So let's start with something a little bit thinner here. Let's see what we got back here. So as you can see, we do have a gap right here. Not so much on that side and with this kit, they did provide shims. So this was previous. I'm going to cheat a little bit here with you guys and toss these shims back here. But they do give you enough to actually shim this correctly. So you won't be short on that. Let's start this one by hand. Show me the breather bolt, will you? Yeah. Zach just said breather bolt. This is the top breather bolt. You can see the hole here, hole through here. Allowing that sucker to breathe, just exactly what it is. All right. We get that one in. We'll button these things down. I always look to see if you get extra movement. When I just took those down, I was just making sure that this wasn't bending back or getting some extra space. So we're good on there. All right. Next setup on this. I'm going to go back to our throttle body right here. Make sure these are snug because it would be toward the spec. And then before we get the outside filter on making sure our choke or enrich inner lever is able to move. You can over-tighten the bolt in the back, so make sure you're checking on that as well. All right. So obviously this is our Venturi inside here. We want to make sure on this specific setup that this is going directly in that way. So we're going to put in our filter. We're going to put in a cover and reference obviously, your manual or manufacturer's specs on what kind of lubricants to do these or asked to actually go dry. I'm going to start these by hand, one in. Two in. Some of you may be asking right now why the heck does this guy have this bike halfway covered up with this rack or this towel? So this bike, like I said earlier on, we've been working on for a while to show you guys how to take a project on a budget and bring it through. So on a low-end budget if needed and this is one that you'll see over the next couple months. So make sure you check this one out. This was a fun little café racer project. Now tighten these down. I want to make sure these holes are going out. We have pins that go on the outside just so they're proportional. And we're going to take our Chrome cover. Get that snug on. We're going to take one of our washers on this side, we've got a spring as well here. Take our wire. Another washer. The most favorite thing is pins way to be snappy on the finger here really, it's a nice little wake up call. So be careful with these. All right. One side. We'll repeat it on this side. And see if we can stick this one through as easy as we did on the other side. And if you're worried, depending on where you're at on your bike too, I want to mention make sure you toss some rags down to cover everything, making sure if another bolt falls, it's not going to come down and hit your exhaust as well. So keep an eye on that. All right. Let me just double check these bolts and that's all we have for the setup on this air cleaner. So with this intake, as simple as that carburetor air cleaner in bing bang, boom. So it's time to get this thing started up. Let me grab a quick drink of water and I'm going to begin this fine tuning. All right. Double check. Obviously, if you've got your bike up on the lift, make sure it's in neutral. Those are simple things. You're not going to be busting through your your left-hand door, your garage or the wall and you're safe to go. All right. Put this puppy in neutral. All right. First thing, make sure you have adequate fuel flow. Obviously, check your petcock and I'm going to put our enrich inner lever up a little bit here. Get this thing started. All right. So what we're going to do is we're actually going to crack our door here just a tad bit. so we're not getting loopy here on you guys and we're going to let this thing warm up for about a minute. Reason being is that we don't want to do any of our adjustments with a cold bike. We want to make sure our enrich inner levers all the way down. We don't have an in choke making those final and dialing it into where we want it. So we're going to let this thing buzz for about a minute here, making sure it idles nice. As you could hear, when I slightly did this, you notice I didn't crank all the way back and rev this bike to full RPM. Definitely, don't do that on a cold engine but we do want to hear the response. So we're going to be fine tuning that as well. So we're going to get this thing going. Let me crack the door too. All right. One quick thing. So I'm going to kind of tell you what we're going to walk through on this before we actually get to it because obviously the bike's going to be running. You're not going be able to hear me that well. As you saw me going through here, you can hear the RPM's going up. Obviously, that's allowing more air going in at that point. And when I shut it all the way down, it was kind of a more muffled potato, potato, potato. I'm sure we have all heard that term. So what we're going to do is we're first going to make sure the choke is all the way down. And then I'm going to bottom out our air fuel mixture here all the way down. We want to take it all the way down and then a quarter turn out. Typically, we're going to do about one full turnout sometimes on that. And then after that, we're going get to the accelerator pump just to make sure that we're getting that response that we need with our throttle. So like I mentioned a little bit ago. If we're going all the way back like this and it's more hesitated, we're not getting that intermediate circuit that we want in the carburetor, we're going to have to adjust that. So number one is that we're going to check that and then we're going to check our idler screw as well too to make sure, but it did sound like it was pretty much on target. We're not too low where it sounds like it's going to die out and we're not too high as well over there. Are you all right, man? You still? Oh, okay. All right. All right, guys. So again, I'm going to be adjusting a few of these things, Phillips screwdriver on these. I'm going to actually take this mixture screw all the way down to start with. Sometimes you will get a whole new response when you're actually starting your bike up. Just like that. Pops right out. So we're going to take this back a little bit. Wait. It doesn't want to even. Now I'm going to take this all the way out As you can see as I just pulled the mixture screw all the way out, dies right out, getting too much air. So it's critical that you're getting this dialed in. All right. So let's get this thing fine tune now. Apparently, the Redland likes to shift things around in our garage here. All right. So as you could see if you noticed some of the smoke, so we actually cleaned these pipes. So what that is, is the smoke coming from that. Well, it's smoky in here. One thing I want to do point out is if you're putting a new exhaust on, make sure you're wiping that all the way down, because at any point if there's any kind of fingerprints or any debris on there and you're starting your bike and getting that here that's a permanent issue that you're going to have on those bikes. So, all right. To reiterate what I did here is I just went through the air mixture screw right here, check the idler as well and pulled that back and then went on the accelerator pump and made sure the response was good. I think we have a little bit more fine tuning and then we'll get that thing kind of buttoned up. Not only are we about to get smoked out of our own shop here, but Holy cow I think we got the same down on par. So just adjust that accelerator screw a little bit and we got the mixer screw down as well. So what's that doing is providing us a little bit lower of a idle as well making sure that we're not going to still die out. And obviously we don't want it too low. We're going to do damage to the engine if we're just not getting adequate, the air and fuel going in there. So easy as that, when you're going through adjusting your carburetor, you have a few things to worry about here when you start playing around with the jets, the needles, all that kind of stuff. Again, we have all those videos out there for you as well, but make sure, make sure you're referencing that highly recommend. Just kind of pulling away from drilling it and just ordering those new jets as well and making sure those downer par. So I'm going to go over and do a few questions here. Grab some fresh air as well. Since our ventilation system is not up, not working the best right now. And let's see here. So. You okay? No, I'm good. Okay. All right. We had one about fuel or bad fuel valve. So fuel going into crankcase after startup, where does the vac line connect from the fuel cutoff? The only part I see is at the carb. Also the fuel tank vent, does it connect somewhere or just hang? I'm new at this, so I need help with some of the simple things. Thanks in advance. So if you have a stock vacuum fuel valve, the fuel's overflowing through your Carberry, you may have a bad fuel valve, number one, or an issue with your carburetor needle valve seat float height. The vacuum should be go from your fuel valve to your intake. So that's a pretty straightforward one. A lot of times with older model carburetors too, it's a good idea. If you're doing a rebuild on it obviously you're changing all the gaskets, all the old rings in there, But make sure you're actually cleaning it out as well. We've had another question. But the overflow been, always shooting out gas. Now there's in your float bowl on these there is something called a tang. And what that does is adjust the needle for how much fuel is actually going to be sitting in your float blowing. It's straight across, and it's got a little piece of metal that hangs down. It can be adjusted simply with just a pair of needle nose pliers, very simply on top of the needle. But a lot of times that'll get corroded depending if you winterize the bike or did not winterize it or just kind of gas you're putting in there and how long it's sitting, so recommended. Even if you're not, I should say, not rebuilding your carburetor, pull that float bowl off give it a nice little rinse. Always use gasoline as a reference for cleaning that and try not to use a hard bristle brush, but use air to start cleaning out some of those ports in there even the smallest little debris going in will cause a big issue on that. So make sure you're checking that. That's a big, it's nine times out of 10. It's got to be something with your floats or that tang or that needle getting stuck in there as well. All right. We got, bear with me here guys. Another question. Come on computer. I would think the air, let me start that over. All right. So let's do a stock cams on these two as well. I would think the air filter and pipes would probably require air fuel ratio increased as adding the cam upgrade definitely, need an increase of air fuel ratio more than just the air filter and pipes. He's got a 2002 FL STCI Heritage from stock to kin. An air filter, hooker long pipes, bolting cam, a slight upgrade. So any change to a stock cam performance and upgrading wall you'll have to definitely do some kind of upgrade, getting more fuel there when the overall lift or overlap on the valve changes into run leaner and causing more fuel. So keep in mind, as you're modifying different components of the bike, likely it's going to always affect another area. Definitely with engine work, if you're borne it out, you're going to need a larger carburetor that's going to accommodate, you know. If for instance, if you're working with a 100 CI and borne in out, it's going to go in larger. You're going to need a larger, like a Shorty E which is made to go for over a 100 CIs. So keep in mind as you're working and tinkering around on that. And even with, you know, your air cleaner on a a larger performance carburetor as well, you're going to need to change that as well. And even with exhaust systems a lot of times, you're shooting out more. So you need to draw in a lot more. And some of the newer bikes when you're doing stage one, stage twos on there and there's a couple of videos we've done on the M8s and you're going to be looking at changing the EFIs. You're going to have to upgrade to a fuel pack on that stuff. So I know that's kind of away from the carburetors, but if you're modifying, you know, certain components make sure, you know shoot us a question on that, or also make sure you're just referencing your manual as well. We also had Kevin shoot in a question. I have a 2000 Harley Night Train. I have a Screamin' Eagle Stage one kit. I just put a new high-performance carburetor on it to replace leaky one. It's supposed to be pre-tuned, but my bike starts in idles. When I give a gas, it spits and wants to die. Question actually is X. Next question, or should I drill out idler screw and try adjusting it? My recommendation is making sure that it's entirely cleaned out, number one. Like I said a little bit earlier. You got something in there that's jamming it up and not wanting to let you really rock on and jam out on the bike. Then sometimes you're getting some kind of abbreviation or clog somewhere in your ports, but with a specific one after making sure everything's checked out. I would actually go out and just get a larger idle or screw on that. And then going through the entire procedure of just adjusting all the way down. So making sure you're checking on that error mixture screw and then also that your accelerator pump. Obviously, we've got a lot of circuits within the carburetor fully checked to make sure everything's working properly in there. And I know it could be a hassle kind of going through that stuff and trying to figure out what size to put where or what needle and on and on. But I recommend, you know taking a look at S&S's tactical information, their issues that they've ran into with that. But quick answer for you, I'll clean it out and then just get a larger size in there as well. Babababa. Let's see what else we got. That's a few for now. A couple other things on here that I do want to mention make sure you're getting enough fuel to your carburetor. A lot of times when we really want to get into component on and start, you know, getting on the road with it, we can kind of overlook things as well. I'm even guilty at it on my own bikes, but just make sure you have the right components to get enough fuel. If you have a larger carburetor on there getting to your bowl make sure everything's clear and free. On this one, when we were hooking up the idle lines, we were getting jammed out where we couldn't get full extension on our throttle and it wasn't snapping back. Reason being is that the ferals at the bottom of the throttle idle line were actually getting jammed up down here. So those little things will kind of run in, but make sure you're taking your time through it and just make sure everything's seated. Big points on adjusting your carburetor, let it warm up give it a minute or two or even three and make sure it's at a good place where you can feel that you can start making adjustments get your enrich inner lever all the way down and then you make your adjustments go right to your air mixture idle screw. Make sure your idler screw is set and then check out the response on your throttle. If you don't have good enough response or it's more, you know, catching or not getting immediate response on that go right to your accelerator and then jam down on that and you get that fine tune. Also, depending on what kind of smoke you're seeing out of your exhaust. Initially, when we had ran this bike we saw a lot of white space coming out running a little bit leaner. So what we did is then, you know, compensated that for with the jets and then also went down in the air idle mixture screw as well. So there's a lot of components to this. Take your time and you know, be one with your bike. It sounds corny. It sounds cheesy, but make sure you know the ins and outs of what you're working with. And I mean, this is your prize enjoy. So stay tuned with it and make sure you're taking the right steps and getting this all the way through. Last thing is make sure you're checking out some of our videos. So if you want to get really into the internals and the circuits and everything else fixmyhog.com. Get those videos up on your screen and check those out. And for the last time, you know, I'm a big gung guy. Make sure you find a way to get into that sweepstakes up to February 19th, with CrossBreeds and their module holsters and get yourself strapped up with a nice little holster for your bike. Thanks to Haynes Manuals for this event, again and make sure you're grabbing that manual. I keep reiterating it and I'm not asked to, but manuals are critical when we're going through and modifying our bikes and making sure that we're getting the longest time out of our bikes as well. So thanks everyone for this event. We look forward to the next one.