Once removed I gave the outsides a bit of a clean before dismantling them. This itself was quite a job but after a few hours they looked much better, although I new it was only part of the job as the most important part, the insides, was yet to be done.
So on with the strip down and I started with the right carb which went well, with all the parts carefully put aside ready for further cleaning.
But then came the left carb, which proved to be a lot worse than the right carb. After removing the float pin and float I was surprised to find that the float valve did not fall out like the right one did and as you would expect. No, instead this was all gummed up, (due to 11 years standing with the old fuel in the carbs) and even after soaking in fresh petrol and blowing down the inlet with a blow gun, it did not want to move. Eventually I won the battle with the help of a pair of pliers and brute force, which then necessitated a new valve but that was alright as I would have replaced it any way.
With the float valve out, the fuel inlet was still blocked and was proving very stubborn to clear properly. So after ordering the carb re-build kit plus a few extra bits, I boxed all my carburettor parts up and took the to Wheelfit Motorcycles near Cambridge, where they put them in their ultrasonic cleaner for a few hours. They came back looking great, but my normal paid work got very busy so the rebuild was delayed until the Christmas holidays.
