what was I thinking - There is no such thing as a partial carb clean !!!!

[aSTerix]

From past experience I should have known !

once the carbs come off , they either need to go straight back on or they need to come apart, therre is not an in between !

What I hoped would be a quick clean up is now going to be a complete disaasembly and rebuild, here is what I (re-)learnt :

1) Boiling in lemon juice is great for removing the "varnish" but it doesnt get into the butterfly pivots
2) soda blasting is a great way to clean the body but don't even think of doing it without fully dismantling the carbs
3) planning to do a dis-assembly at the beginning and taking stage by stage photos is far better than doing it incrementally and ending up with a puzzle kit of parts
4) by a full rebuild kit up front
5) at all costs avoid getting carb cleaner on the diaphragms
6) get an ultrasonic cleaner !
7) it is probably worth considering a professional carb overhaul service, once you remove the cost of the overhaul kit, the labour comes out at about $150 and for me that is $150 worth of knowledge and expertise you are buying !

Once all done, I will be happy and satisfied and glad I did it myself, however, I just wish I had planned to to this from the start, would have been quicker and easier

 

[SMSW]

Not sure about on your continent, but here there is a wide range of ultrasonic cleaners. The home 'jewelry cleaner' type are too small and not powerful enough to do a big carb. It is nice to have a heater built in, and there are, of course, various power levels to the tranducers in the reservoir. If you cannot borrow the use of a good one, you will be spending a fair amount to get one that is not residential/amateur quality. Once you get the u-s cleaner, you will get to pick the solution to use. I tried Yamaha's carb cleaner and it worked fine in my borrowed unit.

 

[aSTerix]

Not sure about on your continent, but here there is a wide range of ultrasonic cleaners. The home 'jewelry cleaner' type are too small and not powerful enough to do a big carb. It is nice to have a heater built in, and there are, of course, various power levels to the tranducers in the reservoir. If you cannot borrow the use of a good one, you will be spending a fair amount to get one that is not residential/amateur quality. Once you get the u-s cleaner, you will get to pick the solution to use. I tried Yamaha's carb cleaner and it worked fine in my borrowed unit.

This sounds like a really good idea, I will see if I can find garage or workshop with one, over here the tendancy is to use human labour rather than expensive machinery so I'm not overly optimistic