renewing valve needle seats

[Surfrjag]

I found this on another forum and figured i would share it as many people have leaky overflow problems and may be able to fix it with this in a bind if they dont want to buy new..


Take some q-tips and cut them in half. These are your polishers. Put the cut end in an electric drill, add polish (toothpaste works, i prefer jewelers rouge) and buff the inside of the seats. This will remove any tarnish and leave the seats very clean and smooth.

For the needles, simply soak them in armorall. I use brake cleaner lids for cups and just regular armorall. This helps to renew the rubber and soften it up again.

Clean with carb cleaner and re-install. It may not fix every leak, but its worked wonders on all but two of the bikes ive done.

Good luck and I hope my contribution helps someone out

 

[sicivicdude]

Half of this trick is especially useful for carburetors with non-replaceble float valve seats. The cotton swab trick is a classic for getting tiny burrs out of the seat area. I use valve grinding compound for about 10 seconds on low speed and then polishing compound for about another 10 seconds on medium. Cleans them right up but you have to go slow and easy. Don't want to wear the seat out with polishing compound.

I don't know about armor-all for the tip of the needle (never really thought about trying to bring a needle back to life) because I always purchase a rebuild kit for the carburetor before I'm going to work on it anyway.