Carb Rebuild done right!
Carburetor rebuild, “but shops charge so much to do the job”! Do it right or dump more and more money into them! Pay the price, it will be worth it in the end.
The most important part of your vintage bike is properly tuned carburetors.
First off, just taking them off and carb cleaning them, is not clean! Then replacing the jets and bowl gaskets, still not clean!
Second, if you do not know what you are doing, do not attempt it! Even if you saw a video on the internet! Think of your carburetors as a precision machine, would you attempt to take your Rolex watch completely apart to clean it???
Do you even have the proper tools??
Most important tool in your tool box if you have a Japanese motorcycle is the Phillips screwdriver. Oh, you say you have plenty those, wrong! Are they JIS Phillips? What is that you say?
JIS stands for Japanese Industrial Standard, and while similar to Phillips, the shape is slightly different. ... A Phillips is engineered to “cam out” once the screw is tight, whereas JIS is locked in and the torque setting is up to the user. It all comes down to the shape of the screw and bit. Every "Philips" screw on a Japanese motorcycle is not a Philips screw at all, but a JIS screw. Almost 100% of the bikes that come in here have stripped out screw heads from previous work.
Do you have a set of vacuum gauges to synchronize multiple carbs? This is by far the most important part of tuning your carbs. Retail $100-$250
Do you have an ultrasonic cleaner? To properly clean all the micro passages in your carbs, this is the only way. Retail $100-800
Do you want them to look like you spent the big bucks and them rebuilt properly, then you will need a Vapor Hone machine and a buffer wheel. Retail $1,000 to over $10,000. Buffers and buffing compounds are cheap.
When I dissect a set of 4 cylinder carburetors, they look like this!
I don’t know what other shops charge, but our rate is $150/HR, I charge about a $200 per carburetor to dissect, ultrasonic clean, re-assemble with all new proper jets per application, o-rings and gaskets then install back on the bike and tune and synchronize them.
Pricing for these Honda CB350F carbs or any 4 cylinder carbs:
- Labor: $800 (carbs off bike)
- 4 Carburetor rebuild kits: $125
- Fuel line and misc: $10
- TOTAL: $935
Extras:
- Vapor Hone everything: $100-$150
- Re-plate all linkage and parts $120
- Quick polish: $25
- Pro Polish: $100
- Stainless bolt kit: $10
- New TOTAL: $1190-$1315
I bet your like “DAMN” I can get a set of CR racing carburetors for a little more and my bike will perform and make more HP! Why would you waist your money rebuilding this old junk? Is your motor stock? Or just pod filters and exhaust? Then CR’s would be a waist of money, they will actually take away performance. Do you think Honda Corporation paid their engineers millions of dollars to make some poor performing carburetors that will not work perfect on their motors? CR Carbs are great if you have a big bore, cam and have a high horsepower hot rod motor, but most do not.
FYI: I have had an old school dyno tuner dial in a 1977 CB750 I built with a big bore, 4 into 1 exhaust and CR racing carbs, he told me he could have made more power with the stock carburetor set up.
Pictures of our process:
After 1st. Ultrasonic
After Vapor Hone
Starting re-assembly
Done!
