Started on valve cover gasket replacement process

[InfinitySurf]

2012 RSV. Got everything torn down today to get ready to finally replace my leaking valve cover gaskets! Also going to pull apart the carbs for a full clean and install Ivan's Performance jet & needle kit (FYI...they are running a 10% off Black Friday special right now that started on 11/29 and goes I think till either 10/2 or maybe it was 10/6?). Since I pull a trailer at times and have heard great reviews on Ivan's kit boosting the power some I figure it will be well worth it even tho I am sure the tradeoff is a little less fuel mileage. With carbs open I am gonna figure out how to check my float levels and correct them if needed since I have seen a few threads on here saying they were pretty far out of spec and getting them right can positively effect gas mileage. I have 4 of the K&L carb re-build kits on the way which include new needle valves/valve seats/orings as well as the other orings needed and the float cover orings. Never had any carb issues with this bike as I mostly run Non-ethenol and always use stabilizer but only makes sense to go thru them now since its so much work getting them pulled out. Definitely a good deal of attention to detail required to do this job but sick of seeing the leaking engine oil all over the back of my engine from those leaking gaskets. Have done MANY carb re-builds over the years but never anything as intimidating looking like this bundle of 4 carbs! Figure if I take my time and take plenty of pics I will be able to figure out how to get them all put back together into the bracket system.

One question.... I am at 800ft elevation but living in NC do trips to the NC & TN mountains which range between 3-4k elevation, can anyone who has installed the Ivan's kit confirm that the recommended jet sizes ended up working the best for them? I received his kit yesterday, looks like the recommendation is 117.5 on the left 2 carbs & 115 on the right side carbs. I havent pulled them apart yet but from parts diagram it appears that carb #1 & 2 both have 122.5, #3 carb had 117.5 & #4 carb has a 122.5 installed from factory. Can tell that these carbs have never been removed from the bike before.

Also replacing the 2 twinkle gaskets as preventative maintenance while everything is apart. Have fully drained coolant from radiator, cylinders, overflow bottle and the water pump in order to change that & also replacing the 4) rubber cylinder plugs. Doing engine/oil filter change to out some fresh Amsoil in there. Installing new NGK Iridium spark plugs, etc.

Will be going thru and checking all the valve clearances, not sure if I will find any valves out of spec or not since only 31k on the engine...if I do find issues I will do that at the same time of course. Hopefully everything goes smooth putting her back together once the valve cover gaskets are replaced and will do a carb sync last. Should be good to go for the next few years with no major maintenance work required since I just finished installing new rear tire (Shinko 777), installed new wheel bearings on the rear, re-packed the swingarm bearings and went thru the final drive thoroughly as well as obviously cleaning and re-greasing the drive pinions.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Heading to MN later this week to visit my Son & 2 grandsons! Oldest turns 7 while I am there and the 2nd was just born in Aug so stoked to spend some time quality time with them.

[N3FOL]

Nice!  Hope you can get all that done before the weather starts to warm up again.    Glad you are able to spend some quality time with your family.  Enjoy the holidays and thanks for sharing your pics.  And by the way, great choice on tires.  I really like the Shinko 777s.  

[luvmy40]

I'm sure you already know this but, make sure to bench sync the carbs before reinstalling them.

[Marcarl]

1 hour ago, luvmy40 said:

I'm sure you already know this but, make sure to bench sync the carbs before reinstalling them.

And make sure that when you snug them altogether that the pots are all perfectly flat with each other. You will need a perfectly flat surface to set them on to accomplish this. So first you make sure that they are tight together, and then you bench sync them.

[InfinitySurf]

Thank you for the pointers! I have not bench synced before since I have never done a quad setup, I have researched it some so I can do it correctly and then I have a Carbtune to finish re-syncing them once the bike is running again. I will probably use the "drill bit method" to bench sync unless someone can recommend a better way? I took apart the outer supports last night as well as stripped the float bowls & needle diaphragms along with all the internal parts. Came up with a method so I would not loose track of which parts go to which carbs, I numbered the carbs and also numbered areas for all the parts to go. Haven't finished disassembling the the quad setup yet as I haven't yet found good instructions on how to do it properly (no videos I could find showing the quads being separated) but I will figure that out one way or another this evening even if I gotta just wing it. Don't these carbs have ever been disassembled before, still had the caps over the mix screws and no scuff marks on them at all showing they had ever been popped off (all 4 were set to 3.5 turns out). I am 3rd owner, I know for sure the guy prior to me was not a DIY guy and from what he said he bought the bike from original owner with extremely low miles so doubt original owner had any reason to do anything either. Carb Internals are in surprisingly good shape for being 14yrs old, even the o-rings look pretty good tho I am obviously still going to replace everything. The float bowl o-rings show the worst build-up and there is a little bit of normal black build-up in the carb throats but no debris or sign of ethenol phase separation at all in the carbs & none of the jets had any build-up in them whatsoever, really helps make a case for running stabilized non-ethenol fuel like I have since getting the bike in 2021. Obviously when I take trips I use whatever fuel I can find but always switch back when on home turf since its readily available in my area since I am close to the largest lake in NC with a ton of boaters.

Thanks again for helping a noob out!

[InfinitySurf]

13 hours ago, N3FOL said:

Nice!  Hope you can get all that done before the weather starts to warm up again.    Glad you are able to spend some quality time with your family.  Enjoy the holidays and thanks for sharing your pics.  And by the way, great choice on tires.  I really like the Shinko 777s.  

I really like them too, they stick really well and do very well in the couple times I have been caught in some rain. Crazy story - I bought front/rear Shinko 777 tires in May of 2022 from Revzilla and when I got them I noticed the rear tire was dated 2121 and the front was 4821 (always check that just in case) - anyway 5-6 weeks ago I noticed a noise starting at the rear and isolated it too a wheel bearing starting to go bad so I removed the wheel to get the entire rear serviced and noticed right away that the rear tire had cracks inside all the tread siping but otherwise still looked really good. Had about 3500 miles on them. Not expecting a whole lot I contacted Revzilla and sent them detailed pictures and submitted some other data thinking I may as well see if they would warranty them since perhaps they had a tire run during that time period that was a bad lot since the front tire shows none of those cracks at all and looks perfectly normal. When not riding the bike is in garage 100% of the time. Too my surprise they agreed to replace the tire, told me to buy a new one and they sent me an RMA to return the old one to them and within a few days of the old tire getting there they fully refunded the purchase price of the new tire! So I was pretty stoked that they stood behind their product even after that much time/miles, if anything it further sold me on those tires since these days especially its rare for a business to step up and do the right thing.

[N3FOL]

Wow that was something to go through on your rear tire, but glad to hear that Revzilla agreed to replace your tire due to inconsistencies on the thread and perhaps a defect on manufacturing.  You just had to remove the tire have a shop unmount and defective tire and remount the new tire over again.  At the end of the day, glad you have the peace of mind knowing that you are confident on your tires.  Blessing in disguise, you also have regreased/serviced the rear end of your bike.  All the best on your carb service project.  FWIW, I frequent Dennis Kirk for most of my bike needs.  

[Vickersguy]

I wouldn't second guess your judgement on the option of resetting the floats but doing so without a careful examination of your plugs is ill-advised.  I had ignition problems on my bike I erroneously attributed to a carb problem.  I reset the floats and after having no improvement,  found other reasons for my poor engine performance.  Now I'm super lean and have to do it all over again.  Only modify your float levels after reading the plugs. 

[InfinitySurf]

22 hours ago, Vickersguy said:

I wouldn't second guess your judgement on the option of resetting the floats but doing so without a careful examination of your plugs is ill-advised.  I had ignition problems on my bike I erroneously attributed to a carb problem.  I reset the floats and after having no improvement,  found other reasons for my poor engine performance.  Now I'm super lean and have to do it all over again.  Only modify your float levels after reading the plugs. 

The adjustment to the floats is simply to follow the factory service manual. Bike has been running great, only going thru the carbs since I have to remove them anyway to get access to the valve cover gaskets. Internals were in great shape, I have cleaned them really well & installed new needle valves & seats as well as Ivans Performance needles. I did speak to him again on Monday and he said the reason for reducing the main jet sizes to 115 on the 2 left carbs and 117.5 on the 2 left carbs is because his needles is thinner so it benefits from the smaller main jets, so I have done that as well and the only thing left to do before re-installing the float bowl gaskets is to do the float adjustments. Service manual is not great in this area cause it tells you to turn the carb upsidedown to measure them but then has a NOTE saying that the float should be resting on the valve seat without depressing the spring in the needle valve. Upsidedown the measurement is 12mm... resting on the valve without depressing that spring the measurement is 6mm (service manual calls for 8-9mm to be within spec). Trouble is that when upsidedown the floats are pretty much level with the carb body so I can measure the height from the center of the bowl (like is shown not only in the service manual but also in every video I have found tho I cannot find a single video showing this adjustment for an RSV)... when floats are resting they are angled way down and there is nothing at the center to measure, I have to measure at the far back of the carb which is where that 6mm measurement is coming from.

Frustrating... has anyone done the float level adjustment and can advise me so I get this right?

[InfinitySurf]

Ok... right side is the float adjusted to the 9.0mm that the service manual calls for measureing from the center of the boat to the highest point of the float. Left side shows how it was originally which was only 6mm measured at the side of the carb bowl since the center did not stick up at all.

Going with this seems to make sense since the reason you adjust the float levels is so the fuel level is correct in relation to where the holes are in the emolsion tube under the main jet. I pulled off the main jet housing to check that and the holes in that tube extend up exactly 9.0mm. Does this new 9.0mm height seem like the correct adjustment to the more experienced members?

[Marcarl]

In my book (thoughts) floats are always measured upside down so the inlet valve is closed, that is where the float closes the intake to stop or regulate fuel flow which is the only job for the float. Turning the carb upside right will only let the float hang loose and has nothing to do with fuel flow. And yes,,, DONT depress the spring anymore than what the float does normally.

[InfinitySurf]

6 hours ago, Marcarl said:

In my book (thoughts) floats are always measured upside down so the inlet valve is closed, that is where the float closes the intake to stop or regulate fuel flow which is the only job for the float. Turning the carb upside right will only let the float hang loose and has nothing to do with fuel flow. And yes,,, DONT depress the spring anymore than what the float does normally.

Thanks for confirming my thought process on this. I went ahead and adjusted them all to the 9.0mm height last night like above picture so I could close up the carbs since I am going out of town for a week and was hoping I was following the correct procedure. In Service manual they showed picture of the carb with the float pointed up...in my head at that point I was thinking "upsidedown" was the bowl down while float was hanging... but that is the way they are mounted on the bike, duh! So yea, service manual makes more sense now too, thot they were contradicting themselves when I read it & I was just having a brain fart :-). It clicked in my head when I read your above post. Appreciate the reply very much!

[InfinitySurf]

Interesting that the bike ran so well with the floats adjusted so low like that from the factory, theoretically that creates a lean condition since the holes in the emulsion tube behind the main jet suck in more air than the system is designed for. Multiple signs point to the fact that these carbs had never previously been opened up by anyone else. For what its worth since I have seen some posts about having the air/fuel mix screws turned out 2-2.5 turns... my bike was set at 3.5 turns out on all 4 and that is also what Ivan recommends to start with and depending on how it runs, potentially backing them off to 3 turns out if needed. Will be interesting to see if there is a noticeable bump in the felt power with the Ivans needles/jets installed as well as properly adjusted floats! Will likely be 3-4 weeks before I get ready to fire her up again since I am in no rush to finish and will be too busy over the next 3 weeks to do much anyway. I haven't even opened up the valve covers yet since I didnt want to leave the engine exposed like that for no reason over the next could weeks plus I plan to replace the 2 twinkie gaskets & might as well go ahead and replace the front wheel bearings/seals while the bike is down since I just did the rear and there was VERY little grease in the factory sealed bearings for the rear wheel. I always clean new "sealed bearings" in deseil and get ride of the factory water soluable grease and then re-pack the bearings with my Lucas synthetic marine grease, it has done very well in many other bearings I have done like that over the last 8yrs or so. BTW...the suspension needle bearings were also all fairly low....easy to re-grease all those when when the rear tire is off -  I checked them cause I had a squeak when I sat on the bike so re-greased them as the suspension bushings & bolts, not sure which solved it but zero noises now.

One other thing I was thinking about.... I blocked off the AIS system shortly after getting the bike in 2021 but never removed the 2 hoses that attach to the nipples on the boots that the carbs sit into on the side of the cylinders. There is no reason why I cannot just remove those 2 tubes while bike is stripped down and install caps like I have on the other 2 nipples as long as I also cap the 2 spots that those 2 tubes currently enter the AIS, correct? Don't remember where but remember seeing a post (may have been on the thread about the "Jason Mod" where someone said he thought one of those tubes was related to the cruise control system? Anyone know if that is true and/or would effect my cruise control if I go ahead and remove them? I wouldnt think it should effect cruise but want to be sure, I dont use cruise control often cause the speed varies too much but its nice to have that option available occasionally.

[InfinitySurf]

In retro-spec I probably should have put this thread in the 2nd gen tech section but initially it wasnt my intention to document everything. I know everyone likes pics tho and I know there have been many pictures on this forum that have been really helpful to me as I was first learning this bike when I got it back in 2021.

Anyway - finally got back to work on the bike the other day now that I am back in town. Got the valve covers off and went thru the procedure to check all the valve lash clearances. Luckily everything was perfectly in spec so was good to go there!

[InfinitySurf]

After checking the valve lash, got the valve covers re-installed. Was definately time consuming to get everything back into place and lined up right. I did use some permatex at the half rounds and also at the low side of the rear valve cover since that is where most of my leaking was happening and hoping to not have to deal with this again for a long time!

[InfinitySurf]

Removed the "twinkie" while everything was easy to get too and cleaned up everything... there was a little crud in the bottom of that opening that I got all cleaned out before cleaning up all the parts really well. Put a little dielectric grease on the new gaskets and re-installed everything using the 7.2ft lbs of torque specified in the service manual

[InfinitySurf]

Tonight I replaced the 4) rubber coolant plugs and re-assembled most of the bike so it is ready to re-install the carburetors and once that is done get air filter system re-installed, gas tank, re-configure the wiring since I disconnected a lot to not put stress on the harnesses as I was taking everything apart. I re-filled the coolant (Used Prestone 10yr) and put in 3.5 quarts of Amsoil with a Mobile 1 110a oil filter.... should be able to finish getting it all back together by end of this weekend so I can make sure everything runs right and put it thru a heat cycle or 2 so I can double check coolant and other fluids and once I know everything is good to go and I wont have to tear anything apart again to troubleshoot any potential issues I will do a carb sync. I ended up doing a total re-build on the 4 carbs but did not replace the outer diaphrams, hopefully that does not bite me in the ass but figure as long as everything else is good I don't have to fully remove the carbs to replace the diaphrams if there ends up being an issue with them tho I dont expect to have issues... they were a little bit stretched, it was pretty obvious that these carbs had never been taken off the bike or worked on previously but they did not have any tears or other visible issues and overall the carbs were in really good shape. Only weird thing I ran into considering how well the bike ran was how far off the floats where set from the factory specs in the service manual...maybe my gas mileage will go up now that they are properly set - at least I hope I set them right :-). I installed Ivan's needles and main jets so will be interesting to see how that changes the bike attitude, assuming it will be a fairly subtle change.

[Marcarl]

Good going, hoping that you're enjoying it,, it can be fun work to do.

[InfinitySurf]

12 hours ago, Marcarl said:

Good going, hoping that you're enjoying it,, it can be fun work to do.

Definitely enjoy it, always end up doing more that I really need to & call it preventative maintenance. I run high stress/stakes jobs so tinkering in my shop is my happy place and where I spend many of my evenings & weekends to unwind. Always have plenty to do since I DIY everything possible. 4 vehicles (2 are for my kids) the RSV, a Honda CRF300L dual sport, 6 quads and lots of chainsaws and other misc stuff with engines. My neighbors usually call me when they have mechanical issues on their boats/toys/mowers/etc doing that kind of work never gets old to me since its not a "job" :-). Doubt I would ever retire since I thrive in stressful situations and never sit still for long but if I ever did this is the kind of stuff I would do every day. Told the wife that when the kids move out I am getting 100 acres out in the woods somewhere, building a smaller home and a 20k square foot shop, lol

[InfinitySurf]

Well, damnit. Got the bike all back together enough to fire it up this evening. Cranked it for about 10 seconds and fuel started dumping out of the right side hose overflow at air filter which would be the #1 & #2 carbs on the left side of the bike. Guess I have a stuck float or something like that. Will have to start pulling things back apart tomorrow and figure out what happened. Gotta say, out of all the different things I have done on this bike mod & maintenance wise, these carbs were the most complicated thing I have done so far. A complete clean/re-build of the 4 carbs is tricky to get the entire quad set back together right from memory + adding what it takes to re-mount the dang things with all the connections in that tight space was pretty time intensive. Had to look at my previous phone pics multiple times of when I took everything apart to remember all the exact routing of the hoses/wires. Hopefully I can easily pinpoint what caused that, hoping that my changing all the float heights per the service manual isn't behind that issue - good times!

[InfinitySurf]

I did a gasket hack today. At top of the air filters where that middle piece goes between the left/right side those foam gaskets had fallen apart and you cant buy replacements. I had some 1/8" sheets of rubber laying around so I carved out 2 gaskets to replace them. figure the biggest purpose for those is to keep dust/dirt out. They will for sure hold up long term! Not my prettiest work cause had to carve the gaskets out with a razor blade.

[InfinitySurf]

Got everything torn back apart last night and removed the carbs. Nothing was obvious regarding the fuel dumping out the overflow, it was the rear left cylinder #1, you could see a little fuel inside the intake boot mounted on the cylinder and the top of the piston was also wet when I removed the spark plug. No other cylinder pistons had any access moisture in them. Pretty sure it had to be one of the needles/valves not sealing properly that caused this. On side note I do think I set the floats a little too high (or low when carb is upsidown) since factory setting was really far off as other people have previously noted when they checked their float heights (mine were set at 6.0mm from factory and spec is 8-9mm). When tab is bent to "raise" the floats to the proper level, when it pushes down on the needle into the valve seat it pushes the needle sideways a little bit and I am guessing that had to be the reason the needle didn't seal correctly so gonna find a happy medium where I can get the floats close the the recommended height with the tab as straight as possible so that hopefully doesn't happen again (I did install new valves/needles/o-rings previously), thinking if I go with 8mm or .0315 it should prevent that and I will be within spec, initially I had set them at 9.0mm or .036 which is on the high end but when re-measured after taking the bowls off again they were all closer to 9.3mm so gonna be more careful this time around resetting them.

Another thing was when I previously re-assembled the carbs after re-building them I noticed that my vacuum slide diaphragms had shrunk a little bit which I guess is too be expected being 12yrs old and they were tough to get back into the outer grooves when re-installing the outer diaphragm covers, I used a little dielectric grease on the outer edges of the diaphragms to help them slip into place but when I removed the cover for the Cyl #1 cover I realized that it had pinched the edge a little. So bit the bullet and ordered 4) new OEM slide diaphragms last night which will be here in a week. I know that would not cause the flooding/rich condition.... if anything once running a bad seal on the diaphragm would cause a lean condition but glad I caught that since I would have potentially fixed the flooding issue and then had to pull it all apart again later once I realized the bike wasn't running right since with a vacuum leak I would never have been able to sync up the carbs properly. Honestly if this is the only issue I run into after stripping the bike down as far as I did over the last 4 weeks including tearing off the entire rear end including the swingarm, I will be pretty happy!

Once I got her back to running right my last planned upgrades for the winter include removing the front wheel to also replace the bearings/seals on the front wheel (already did the rear and there was VERY little factory grease in them)...same with the swingarm bearings tho I did not replace them, I just cleaned them out and re-packed them properly with Lucas synthetic marine grease as well as all the needle bearings in the suspension linkages. I also recently bought 4) of the Polk 402 speakers & foam baffles that I plan to replace to get a little better sound, maybe down the road I will add an amp under the rear trunk and install a good head unit where the factory cassette player currently is.

The only issue on this bike I have never been able to resolve is the fuel sender gauge. Since buying the bike in 2021 the fuel gauge has had 8 blinks.... from my research that pointed to replacing the fuel sender assembly in the gas tank. I replace it in 2021 and the same thing kept happening, thinking I got a factory dud I sent it back and get another new replacement, installed it.... and same thing. I have ohm'ed out all the wiring and done everything else I can think of and never been able to figure out that issue so I have just always reset my trip when I fuel up and keep an eye on it that way but damn its annoying not to have a working fuel gauge even tho I know they are never totally accurate on motorcycles and boats. You know what, now that I think about it even tho I tested all the wiring the one thing I have not done that could cause this if all the components & wiring are good is make sure that the connector that you unplug to remove the gas tank is making a perfect connection when plugged together, think I will remove both of those connectors and direct wire them temporarily to see if somehow there is a bad connection there. See, sometimes talking to yourself gives you light bulb moments! Lol

Happy holidays!

[Marcarl]

Looks good so far again.

[InfinitySurf]

Was super careful this time around with these floats and am feeling good about it working properly this time around since I also found a thread earlier today where @V7Goose reset his floats a while back and used .034 or approx 8.4mm for his float heights and his write-up pretty much confirmed what I needed to change and how to measure (I think the 1st time I also used the skinnier float for the measurements not realizing that they sit lower than the fatter floats so I was originally probably closer to 9.5mm height which was No Bueno. Not sure how I missed seeing it previously since I searched a while back and didnt find it then but I sure as hell wont forget the lesson I learned doing it wrong the 1st time! Would have had to pull carbs back out anyway cause I realized after doing some testing that 2 of my 4 vacuum slide diaphragms didn't have a good air seal cause they shrunk some on outside diameter and are too deformed for me to make them work...figured out a neat trick to test them after install using air compressor to confirm they are properly seated. Anyway, set all the float heights at 8mm (using the larger float side on all 4 to measure height) and also held the carbs at approx 75 degree angle while measuring to ensure that the needle plunger was not being depressed at all since it doesn't take much pressure to compress them, even at 45 degree angle the weight of the floats will start compressing the plungers & throw the measurement off. Was one of the things V7Goose had in his writeup that made a lot of sense and worked very well. Thank you Goose!

Soon as the OEM diaphragms arrive in a week or so I will change them out and then put everything back together so I can re-test. Fingers crossed

[sleepy2]

Very nice write up!!! Reminds me of when @XV1100SE(2009RSV) and I (2012 RSV) did our valve check with the help of @Marcarl!!