My Shop This Morning

A little shrink tube mod on the stock fuel tees did the job on my Z1B carb set.
They never do leaking again over the years.....

 
 
 

Interesting shrink tube mod.  Good pics too.  How well does the shrink tube tolerate ethanol?

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

When I first started rebuilding carbs, I bought some aftermarket Tee's, different types, but I was never happy with the fit, nor the quality of the supplied O-rings.  After that, I started making my own Tee's from brass, on a lathe.  These worked fine, but are a fair bit of work.  More recently, I've been buying these long size Tee's from China sellers.  They are decent quality, other than the O-rings, which I change.  For KZ version bikes, using two fuel Tee's, I mod them on a lathe.  I've worked out all the dimensions for a good fit.  These save a ton of time compared to building from scratch.

Regarding shrink wrap, or teflon tape, over cracks, I'm passing.  Gasoline, inches away from the crotch, is nothing to monkey around with.

   



 

Im not a fan of the shrink wrap fix either. Just easier to do it correctly and not have to worry about it leaking. Iv seen a few posts about guys who have done it but I will pass also

Let's see, Oh Yeah the Gold Wing,
I added the last half quart of ATF into the cranckcase, this after pouring a half a quart of ATf I'd already poured into the cylinders. I started the bike and let it run until the radiator fan cycled on then I changed the oil and filter. I decided that the bike needed to be run to temperature either idling or very carefully riding on 30 year old tires. By the fourth cycle the ring came loose and stayed loose. I was just about to part out this beautiful naked wing but with this very major hurdle behind me I'll be looking for another set of Avon Cobra s.
Next tale: Tank cleaning on my KZ900.
This mess is totally my fault. I parked the bike with a full tank of gas but over the last 18 years it's evaporated leaving a thick layer of scaly rust/varnish. I started with my standard method but found that the varnish was protecting the scaly rust so I reverted to a pint of Acetone sloshed around every couple of hours. Which at least poured out dark brown. Still not clean enough.

It was looking like it was gonna take physical agitation with some sort of abrasive aggregate to clean the inside of the tank. Some years ago I tried using an old clothes dryer with socker balls stuffed in around what ever tank needed cleaning. Unfortunately, the balls wouldn't hold their position and the tank would soon start knocking against the dryer tub. Then I realize that I could re-purpose my roto molder into a tank tumbler with not much more effort than to try to stuff socker balls around a gas tank.

Check out:


The end result is adequate. Not every bit of the interior is gunmetal grey but 95% is. One mistake I made was to use 70 grit aluminum oxide with about 50 - 3/8" pebbles and a hand full of 1" drywall screws. The last two items were fine but next time I'll use 20 grit as the 70 grit has resisted flushing cleanly over many tries.
Bill

Your fuel tank tumbler is fantastic!!!
An ingeniously constructed masterpiece for this purpose!!!

To quote the Guinness ad - Brilliant!
And unlike the hired neighborhood kid, it runs continuously for hours...

slmjim+Z1BEBE wrote:

We've used those aluminum T's on Z1 carbs before with no problems.  We bought six sets plus spare O-rings for all six sets from Z1 Enterprises at Jeff's Mid-Ohio swap site the last year Jeff was there, so that's been ~10 yrs. or so.  Maybe the O-ring stock has changed since then?  We'll try measuring one for diameter of the ring cross section.

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE
 

They were misplaced on the shelf & took 'till yesterday to find.

Within the resolution of a good digital caliper & slmjim's questionable skill at measuring small, soft O-rings:
Cross section = 2mm
OD = 10.9mm
ID = 7.1mm

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE