Well the winter siesta for the bike seems to have brought on a little miss between 3-4K so I'm going to yank the carbs off and give them a good cleaning. While I'm in there I want to shim the needles. I'm running a stock intake with Jardine exhaust. It looks to be running a little rich as I have a nice black residue on the inside of the exhaust tips. I seem to recall that a baseline setting is to shim the needles .020 with washers from Radio Shack and adjust the screws 2.5 turns out. Does that sound about right for starters? Anything else while I'm in there?

Thanks,

Steve in WA

 

Yup, that's the gist of it.

If you weren't going to shim, I'd say to leave the carbs on and use Yamaha Carb Cleaner. It's somewhat of a secret, even my local dealer didn't stock it. It's not mixed with gas in the tank, rather you pour it into the carb's gas lines shake the bike, tap the carbs, then let it sit for a bit, drain, and refit lines to tank. Really bad cases need to sit overnight. It's damn near magic yet doesn't harm the tender bits.

 

Okay so I played with the carbs this weekend. When I got them apart I noticed that the stock needles already had a shim under them. I bought the bike used and I didn't see a shim for the needle in the shop manual so I assume someone has been in there before, yes? Or are people talking about adding a shim to the stock one? I left it as is for now.
The rear slide was sticking so I cleaned and lubed them both. I slotted the air/fuel screws with a dremel and ordered the vacum nipple for the front head so that I can give the balance a go next week.

 

Yes, the stockers have a washer. See page 5-12 of the FSM.

 

Yep there it is. I was looking at the image at the bottom of 5-10, which doesn't have the washer. Bummer. Well I'll have to pull them off an add another washer. Thanks for the info.