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Carb issue found while rejetting

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Old May 15, 2011 | 11:57 AM
  #1  
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CJinNH
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Default Carb issue found while rejetting

I bought my 2003 Fatboy last year from a guy that seemed to know very little about what had been done to the bike. He had Screaming Eagle slip ons and when I asked if any carb work had been done he had no clue.

Well I added a new exhaust and new airfilter so went and got a jet kit. When I started taking things apart I noticed that the elbow where the fuel comes into the carb was brass with a screw down clamp-not a crimp connection on a plastic elbow...when I got furhter I found that the fuel/air mixture screw had already been drilled out...ok, so some carb work had been done.

I kept going with the disassembly and when I removed the float bowl, I found a small cube of metal sitting on the float assembly. Upon further investigation the piece of metal had broken off from the carb housing. (the little square shaped piece above the dashed yellow line)



As I looked closer it appeared that there was some glue or epoxy at the broken spot, it looks like someone had tried to epoxy the piece back on and the gas ate away at the glue. The top of the shaft is visible at the break, but there's still enough meat on the metal to hold the pin in place.

Does anyone know how much movement occurs at this pivot point? How much pressure? It appears that the half assed repair attempt didn't work and I've put several thousand miles on the bike without issue.

I've starting looking for a replacement stock carb as this does not seem like a piece that I can just replace because it's part of the body of the carb.

If anything lets loose...what's the worst case? Piece gets to the engine and causes major havoc? Anyone have a spare carb floating around?
 

Last edited by CJinNH; May 15, 2011 at 12:07 PM.
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Old May 15, 2011 | 12:53 PM
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1CdnHD
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Looks like someone punched the float pin out the wrong way, punching it out against the direction of the arrow will get you exactly what you have there. You are correct on your search for a new body...worse case the float pin falls out/float stuck and you have no control over the fuel level in the bowl = massive fuel leak.
 
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Old May 16, 2011 | 08:35 AM
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I haven't worked on one of these carbs recently, but many carbs among many manuf. get broken at this point when trying to adjust the float levels because someone uses this mounting post as a pivot point for their screw driver and/or they have a stuck float rod that they can't get out of the post.

Pot metal ain't flexible.

I would try, if I was desperate, an epoxy (not super glue... something like JB Weld) or just buy a carb on ebay from someone that decided that they needed to upgrade to an S&S.
 
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Old May 16, 2011 | 08:43 AM
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Originally Posted by cwsharp
I haven't worked on one of these carbs recently, but many carbs among many manuf. get broken at this point when trying to adjust the float levels because someone uses this mounting post as a pivot point for their screw driver and/or they have a stuck float rod that they can't get out of the post.

Pot metal ain't flexible.

I would try, if I was desperate, an epoxy (not super glue... something like JB Weld) or just buy a carb on ebay from someone that decided that they needed to upgrade to an S&S.
It looks like someone tried to epoxy it before, but in time the gas must have weakened it. I'm looking for a new carb now.
 
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