Split carb mounts after 3 months

Had some emails from Don yesterday

Don James
Yes. I can ship to the UK.


As no one gave me a sample of a metal cover, I can tell you that they will NOT work with metal covers.

KevC
Hi Don
the metal covers not fitting will not be a problem, they only give extra support to the carbs & a simple bracket above the carbs will easily solve this. Having rubber carb holders that dont split after 3 months is what we need
cheers Kev

Don James
I am not sure you would need any supports, as our rubber is much tougher than origional.
I will wait to see what happens here before I make too many of them.
 
the metal covers not fitting will not be a problem, they only give extra support to the carbs & a simple bracket above the carbs will easily solve this.

I would have thought they also helped to keep a good seal around the carbs
 
As Don James stated in his email " I can tell you that they will NOT work with metal covers."

Do people think this is major problem :confused:
Or can it be worked around?

As far as I know all makes of carb holders currently available for standard carbs cannot handle ethanol so what are the options?
The survey was shut down because Don realised that his holders cant take the metal covers. And therefore thought there would be no real interest. However his mounts can take ethanol and are made from a much tougher rubber.

So what do people think?
 
Any new supplier of parts would be a welcome addition especially if he is addressing a problem.
So far we still have a choice of non ethanol mixture petrol here, ( It will only be a time thing), and i would defiantly find a solution to the metal covers to guard against air leaking around the manifold.
I do think it would be a problem for people who didn't think they need to have a good seal at the carb to manifold. I have seen damaged lips in the carb holders from poor installation, or lack of a lubricant when installing and we all know how little room there is in that area
I usually use a small smear of grease around the outside of the carb and inside the lip of the manifold before reinstalling
 
- there are often air leaking problems when the covers are not used or are not done up as tight as you can get them...this is made worse by removing the support afforded by the airboxes when using pod type filters...further problems arise when the carbs are not properly seated in the holders, definitely need to feel them pop-in

- this is surely better than the shit currently on the market, however i am seriously thinking about alu manifolds and simply removing the risks associated with rubber and ethanol and the eventual replacement costs down the line as the rubber, if it survives, eventually hardening and cracking
 
If the original manifolds aren't hardended or cracked to badly........10 years ago I cleaned mine good and put a bit of superglue down in the cracks and then covered the manifolds with black silicone..........then replaced the metal sheath wiping off the excess and assembled the manifolds and carbs on the bike and "very" lightly tightened the screws.......let it set 24 hours and torqued them down....so far so good after 10 years..........cost a bit of silicone......I suspose it won't work in every case but did for me............

xsjohn

xsjohn
 
Kev, I'm scratching my head over the need for sample shrouds, since if the shape of the OEM boot is replicated the OEM shroud will work fine, but I'd be happy to send samples to Don James if he'll return them. Re.all makes of boots being the same, Mike Lalonde is, uh, mistaken. In Illinois it's a serious challenge to find fuel with less than 10% ethanol content, the XS650 isn't the only machine that uses rubber carb boots, and the only problem with ethanol incompatibility I've seen (if that's really what it is) is on one machine (ours) with boots made in one place (China) to the specifications of one supplier (Mike Lalonde). Re. Tour Max, I used 'em for years with regular exposure to 10% ethanol and never had a problem; Lalonde used to offer them. Instead of the old "Sold thousands, never had a problem" we have a new song and dance from Lalonde: "Everybody else's are just as bad." Guys, it ain't so.

BTW, Michael Morse at 650 Central offers OEM replacement Japanese mounts compatible with OEM shrouds (probably Tour Max) listed as ethanol safe.
 
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- after being delivered complete shit from him, or rather his distributors, and getting nothing but crap when i complain, ive become very selective about what, if anything, i get there...although i dont mind dealing occasionally with jerry heiden as ive found him to be a straight up person, there are a lot of outside the box people now interested in these bikes and slowly more and more alternative choices are being made available, thankfully

- i find it ridiculous how, when lalonde finds people telling the truth about his products, instead of dealing with the issues he simply gets ratty
 
Ridiculous? Maybe; if Lalonde is consciously lying he's made himself ridiculous. There's also the possibility that he's delusional, in which case he should be an object of pity; I've heard a couple of guys guess at dementia. His customer relations started to deteriorate when he initiated the online-only operation and direct communication with customers was broken, and from what I can see things have gotten steadily worse.
 
Kev, I'm scratching my head over the need for sample shrouds, since if the shape of the OEM boot is replicated the OEM shroud will work fine, ....................
Re. Tour Max, I used 'em for years with regular exposure to 10% ethanol and never had a problem; Lalonde used to offer them. Instead of the old "Sold thousands, never had a problem" we have a new song and dance from Lalonde: "Everybody else's are just as bad." Guys, it ain't so.

BTW, Michael Morse at 650 Central offers OEM replacement Japanese mounts compatible with OEM shrouds (probably Tour Max) listed as ethanol safe.

grizld1
I agree, I don't understand why the metal shrouds dont fit if he copied the original carb mount but Don states they do not as he was not given any metal shrouds initially & his moulds are made already.
Guess I was foolish enough to take Mike Lalonde at his word when he said "everybody elses are just as bad" :wtf:
When my first set of XSperformance mounts split, I got a free replaement set but had such little faith in the product I bought a pair of TourMax ones as backup. Glad to hear that these should be ok :)
I would always rather pay a little more for a quality product but sometimes you dont know the quality until its too late :banghead:
 
From the XS650 Club site http://www.xs650.org.au/notice_board.html

New Inlet Manifolds

Some new inlet manifolds are being produced in the US. This has come about as the result of available replacements proving to be unsuitable due to poor rubber quality. They will cost US$58 per pair plus US$13.45 for postage etc. ( AU$77.50 per pair on the exchange rate for today 9/1/2010). If anyone is interested in buying some of these contact Terry Gliddon at toota@internode.on.net and I will try to organise a bulk buy to save on the postage cost from the USA. This may cover the repackaging and postage cost here in Australia, if not then it will be a bit extra. Contact me ASAP as I am closing orders on Friday 15th of January. I will need to receive payment before I can place the order. Click on my name for payment options.

These are available for both 34mm and 38mm with or without vacuum barbs. Without vacuum barbs US$54 per pair.
Original metal covers will not fit these manifolds and they are suitable for 447 engine models only.
256 engines have a different angle so these won't fit properly.

Might be a good time to get in touch with Don, if he is making a batch for our guys


Mikes people skills aren't the best and some people have a personal beef with him and some of his products have not been up to scratch for what ever reason, but he has gone a long way to making the XS a restorative cost effective reliable every day runner with mostly cheep quality parts and to see this thread dissolve into a hateful slag MikesXS thread seems to run against site rule no 8.

8. If you have an issue with another member, deal with it in a professional and respectful manner. Try resolving your problems with the member through email or private messages first. If a thread turns into a bitch fight or name calling and character bashing, it will be deleted or edited (cleaned up). This site is not the place for grade-school drama.

Yes i realize he is not a member. He used to drop into 650 rider and give us updates on availability of parts and some members were getting feedback on complaints (even if they had to wallow through some before he would come across), but communication was there and finding the negative and running with it will only stop any chance of him of coming onto here to give updates on availability of parts. I for one appreciated his input.

I'll climb down now
 
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Skull, good info there about getting orders to Don for a bigger batch if that will help things.
 
This thread has kind of turned into an advertisement for Don's carb holders. Normally, things being advertised belong in 'The Marketplace'. If it's an individual seller, it goes in 'Classifieds' and if it's a shop or company promoting their products, it goes in 'Shops'. Kind of like the difference between for sale by owner and for sale by dealer. The commercial products go in a difference section. Now we could move all of the relevant post to a thread in the Shops section and link to if from here, but since KevC started this thread and is on-board with this whole thing (and others don't seem to mind), we'll keep everything as it is for now. Plus the thread kind of evolved into an ad and Don wasn't the one doing the advertising.... We just don’t want the General Discussion area to get filled up with product advertising, so everyone just keep that in mind. Since discussion of products if perfectly fine, things can stay where they are.

As far as rule 8 goes (actually it is guideline 8), giving bad reviews about a product can be different than character bashing. Sometimes it's a fine line so lets try to keep the comments objective and factual and let people decide for themselves if they want to buy from someone or not.
 
No I think this thread is pretty dead but Ill sum up what I know:umm:
I started this thread to show others what had happened to my carb mounts, so they could be aware of the potential problem with certain makes.:wtf:
I did the same on another site & was informed by the owner of the shop where I had bought them from that this was a common problem with ALL makes.
Hence I believed there were no decent carb mounts on the market :(, so naturally chased up the potential of a new manufacturer making some that would not be affected by ethanol.
When it emerged that the metal shrouds would not fit, I seeked site members opinions on whether this was a problem.
From their responses it seems that other makes of carb mount are not affected by ethanol, so as long as you buy a decent make, they aint a problem:thumbsup:
 
Greetings, all...

I'm in the midst of this as well. Just before the cold weather set in, I did a "preemptive" replacement of my stock (original) holders with a set of K&Ls from OldBikeBarn, hoping to eliminate a variable in solving a hunting idle problem and an occasional decel pop. Their product description said "OEM quality", and there was no ethanol warning, but I have not had a chance to road test the bike ('73 TX with pods) with them on there, so I'm not sure whether they'll be affected by ethanol.

Based on what I have read here, I suppose I should make a support wire for the BS38s and put a few hundred miles on them (weather permitting) and hope for the best, but I would be very happy for recommendations as to what my best option might be in light of the aggregate knowledge in this thread. I don't mind the fact that I had to modify the way I mount my side covers, but not knowing whether the holders will survive is a bit disquieting. I'll be interested in opinions, and to see what options are presented to us, since this is a real problem, evidently.

TC
 
Hi TC & welcome
If my memory is correct, in the thread on the same subject on 650rider, Mike Lalonde (from MikesXS) included the K&L's from OldBikeBarn as those that could be affected by ethanol. :confused:
Like you say, your best bet is running them & see what happens but prob best to get a back up set.
650Central has a great reputation & he states on his site that his carb mounts are not affected by ethanol
Cheers Kev
 
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