Hi from Bournemouth

Hi all
I have bought my '97 Cat at the beginning of April. Stripped it down, cleaned, painted swing arm and done few other jobs. Once i adjusted the "soft" suspension it feels ok now. Although moving to Cat from 2011 750 GSXR it feels a bit too soft.
So far I am loving this bike and I hope i will use your knowledge and experience to further enhance my bike as I try to do most of the work myself.

Next thing on the list is to sort out the jittery low revs the riding slow. Between 1,5k - 2,5k rpm. Could it be becuse crbs need clening and/or syncing?
Bike has done 24k miles and there is some history but I can't tell if it had the valve clearence checked or carbs synced.

Once again HI

Kam

Hi & Welcome Kam.

Balancing the carbs is fairly straight forward and you can make yourself a cheap manometer if you don't have or can't borrow any gauges.

Good luck & Enjoy.

Cheers
Rosco

Hi and welcome.

Might be an idea to post the low revs, could be normal, could be out of balance .... They don't run quite the same as a newer bike, in the lower revs the carbs are using the idle jets and go onto the mains from about 2.5k. I had an issue with my second 'Cat, never idled properly - yammy dealer who did my p/x said it was the carbs, could be mixtures, well it seemed to be in my case.

Thx
I will be taking her to local garage for strip, clean and balance. I don't have the carbtune or similar

If i did have one though would I need some extra tools? On facebook some mechanic mentioned something about choke locking tool.
Any good writeups here how to balance DIY?

To the forum

Hello and welcome!

There are a number of different vaccuum guages you can buy, I think I paid around £40 for a set of 4 guages. It's a really simple job to do on the cat, you don't need any other tools except may an auxillary tank (which you could make) to feed fuel whilst you've got the tank off.

Another solution would be to chuck through some additive as there could be a blockage in the jets, especially if the bike has been sat around with old fuel inside. I use "non-commercialised" stuff like Forte gas cleaner or Seafoam - this stuff really cleaned out my thunderace, as some of the guys on here will remember how dirty that thing was.

A garage might charge you a couple hours labour for balancing carbs when it really is only a 20minute job (including taking tank off) and is something you should maintain every big service so might be worth investing in a set of gauges, or as Rosco said you can make one relatively cheap - you'll have pick at him for that info as I have no idea how!

Alternatively, I'm not a million miles from you, so you're welcome to pop round and use my gauges and I can walk you through it.

Paul

bat-kam wrote:On facebook some mechanic mentioned something about choke locking tool.

That'll probably be a YICS blanking tool, I think you'll only find that being used in some Yamaha Auth workshops. I've not seen one of those for quite a few years. I doubt any 'Cat here has had the carbs adjusted with that.

I have agreed with a local garage that they will clean and balance my carbs for £120 all in. All I will have to do is to leave the bike on Wdnesday and take their loan bike until Friday afternoon. This way they will be able to fit my job inbetween all other

In the future I may buy a set of CARBTUNE and do it myself. How often does it need adjusting?

The vacuum pipes are conveniently placed on the frame, so a quick check can be performed without too much of a problem, probably check every few thou - not that I ever did that with mine, once a year or second year!

I'd be interested to know what they will be doing when they clean the carbs. If they are taking them apart and cleaning them out, then that's not a bad price with the loan bike included. If they are just taking of the tops of the carbs and spraying stuff in, then it's not a good price!

Anyway, best of luck!

Oh I forgot to say, whilst they are cleaning the carbs get them to check the TPS, it might need adjusting - that might be contributing to the low revs being rough.
The values and the calculation are in the workshop manual (Haynes and Yamaha, although the latter has an error in the example!)

Hello and welcome

Welcome aboard!!
Just a quick question. When balancing my cards should I disconnect the scottoiler or leave it connected as this is how the bike runs day to day

Catnapper wrote:
Just a quick question. When balancing my cards should I disconnect the scottoiler

Don't think your Scottoiler is gonna make a jot of difference to card balancing chap

Welcome to the forum

0ldcat wrote:

Catnapper wrote:
Just a quick question. When balancing my cards should I disconnect the scottoiler

Don't think your Scottoiler is gonna make a jot of difference to card balancing chap

Bleeping predictive text

I'd say if the Scottoiler is in line with the balancing pipes leave it in.

I picked up my bike from Motorcycle Trade-Ins in Bournemouth this morning. It had full carb strip and clean and sync.
I have to say that £120 was money well spent. It has made BIG difference to low rev range. Just want I wanted. One thing I will have to adjust is the throtle free play as it is too loose for my liking.

The comments from mechanic was that the carbs weren't that dirty but very out of balance.

Going forward I will invest in CARBTUNE or similar and do the sync once every 6 months.

Kam