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As the title says, I just got my first bike. It's a '79 Honda CB750K LTD. That's the 10th anniversary edition. It's been garaged all or most of its life, and the paint and chrome are in pretty good shape, with a few scratches and a small dent in the tank from being dropped on its left side at some point.
Here's my problem: it hasn't been run in 5 years. The floats seem to be frozen in the carbs. I was told that when the petcock was set to run, fuel flowed out the carbs.
Now for my question: rebuild; or remove, douse with carb cleaner, and reinstall.
The shops around here are in the middle of summer rush, and don't want to touch it. The Honda dealer wants LOTS of money. I'm mechanically inclined, but would like to avoid a rebuild if I can. Would carb cleaner until the floats move be a feasible way to get things going?

if you dont pull them and do a proper cleaning job on them you are wasting your time.you will just have to keep pulling them until you do it right.might as well do it right the first time.

9000white wrote:if you dont pull them and do a proper cleaning job on them you are wasting your time.you will just have to keep pulling them until you do it right.might as well do it right the first time.

+1

I've heard people say that they have cleaned gummed-up carbs just by running 'wonder-chemical-o-the-week' through them. And good for them what has. More power to 'em....

But it has never happened to me, or to anyone else when I have been present. The only really sure way is to buck 'em off, open 'em up, and actually get in there and clean the crud and varnish out by hand. Or do all of the above and substitute taking the carbs to a shop and being ultra-sonically cleaned for the manual scrub-out.

Right, thats what I ment by carb cleaner-pull the carbs out and hose them down till they get un-frozen