Before I start, I bought this Z1B as a non-runner from a mate who had left it standing for about 8 yrs, so I knew I was going to have a few problems. The carbs had been cleaned by Steve Smethurst, rebuilt with masses of NOS parts and I spent many hours cleaning & checking all the orifices?.. LOL
So if you have carb problems here?s a few things you need to check, some obvious but one certainly less so.
My saga:
On Tuesday , being pretty fed-up, I called Chris Rivett to discuss likely causes for my starting problems and for those of you who know me I?m not the sort of guy who asks for help very often (I?ve been around these bikes for 30+yrs & know it all, of course I would say that!) Chris gave me chapter & verse on the choke circuit, so much so that by the time I?d put the Mob down I?d forgotten most of it. I grabbed my tatty copy of the original workshop manual & read-up on how these carbs work. So, when starting from cold you must not open the throttle, this defeats the object! My bike would only run, reluctantly, by feathering the throttle and then only on 3 cylinders? don?t they all!
Finding No.1( Image 1 + 2)
Armed with a little more knowledge I stripped my carbs AGAIN and examined the chokes, choke ports & brass atomizer pipe and low and behold uncovered my first problem NO CHOKE JET in the atomiser pipe No.3 carb.
The first image (all blurry I?m afraid no David Bailey) shows the end of the atomiser pipe in which there should be a small jet (~1/64? diameter hole) and you?ll notice that mine is completely missing.. The second image is for comparison & shows this small hole in carb No.4.
I now need one of my fitters at work to make me a jet.
Finding No.2 (image 3)
I now turned to the float bowls themselves to test whether the hole that the choke atomiser goes into was clear, was it ####!! I found 3 out of 4 blocked, so by using a Pin-chuck I cleaned out the vertical & 45? holes with a
1mm drill so now fuel can be drawn into the choke tube.
Finding No.3
Again with carb No.3, in the hemi chamber alongside the choke tube are two holes that run parallel with the axis of the slide, one is slightly bigger than the other, one of these was blocked at its deepest point. I used a lot of release agent, strands of thin copper wire and tons of patience and finally cleaned this out too.
Hopefully I?ll have the carbs assembled early next week & ready to fire her up again. Fingers crossed.
Thanks to Chris.
DogsbolloxofZ1b.
(Edited by DogsbolloxofZ1B at 3:34 pm on Sep. 22, 2006)