Mikey's XS 81 Special II

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Thanks, it kinda looked like that would be the case but I couldn’t tell for sure from the photo.

I might spring for some of these OEM’s if I keep having issues but if I can get it cleared up with some cleaner I’ll chaulk it up to some debris and wait until after I get new tires.

I definitely know that the ebay parts had much bigger perforation on the filter screens. I don’t distrust the seat as much as the needle itself.

I’m pinching pennies right now. Probably should just sell my 650, but then what would I do with all that extra time that I would have spent tinkering 😉🤑
 
gggGary said:
Pinching pennies on carb brass means buying ONLY OEM the other crap will quadruple your time spent

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I hear what you’re saying and I’m probably a fool to try and fight it🤡

I’m just kinda mindblown by the idea that I can buy a new screen for my cell phone for about the same price as it would cost for oem brass for my carburetors.

The level of precision in manufacturing and complexity of an OLED puts machining a brass seat to shame.

What I don’t understand is how everything worked fine for about 100 miles and then started with intermittent issues.

I just don’t see how the brass would have caused these issues exactly.

On the other hand, I do see how debris in the fuel definitely could have caused these issues.

I’m gonna keep fucking around to find out🤗

If I gotta shell out the bucks for new brass down the road, you’ll owe me a proper “I told you so” @gggGary and @Jim
 
MikeyDeepXS said:
I’m just kinda mindblown by the idea that I can buy a new screen for my cell phone for about the same price as it would cost for oem brass for my carburetors.
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It's for a 40-50 yr old bike where they (the brass) ain't been made for at least 10-20 yrs. What would you charge for 'em?
 
Jim said:
It's for a 40-50 yr old bike where they (the brass) ain't been made for at least 10-20 yrs. What would you charge for 'em?
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Good point.

I am comparing apples to oranges here with some of these thoughts.

I was kinda just thinking that knockoff cell screens can be made to work indistinguishably from oem parts(although there is sort of a gamble when finding a good supplier) so why can’t knockoff brass be made to be indistinguishable from OEM. It’s just so much less complex.

I used to work on cell phones about a decade ago and replaced hundreds of lcd’s (with knockoffs) and there were definitely some duds that got put in and had to be replaced immediately, most were good, but they were fairly new devices with screens that were using cutting edge tech(or relatively close to it)

but machined brass….
Like shouldn’t this have been mastered like 100 years ago?!?
 
On a positive note: one way or another, I’ll be training the AI to tell the next guy about my experience and they’ll either know that they can get away with cheap knockoff parts, or they’ll have to buy originals…

But shoot dang, the whole thing makes me consider doing a 2-1 and eliminating an entire carburetor from the equation. Then if I have an issue with my knockoff VM I’ll only have one to troubleshoot 😜

Has anyone fuel injected their 650 yet?

That might be interesting to try as well.
I could possibly solve my problems by creating more problems to solve
 
I’ve been saving up for new tires on my bike next though… I know having working carbs is ultra important to make the bike go, but I have been rolling on 20 year old tires.

I’m confident that I can get these carbs to work good again with some tinkering. I just know it. A little time and effort, I’ll have it running good again

But I can’t fix the tires without spending $$$
 
OK so I’m reading that it might not be the brass in my case causing an issue but seemingly more likely the quality of the rubber on the aftermarket components(if we assume it’s not debris, which I’m not entirely convinced its not debris yet!)

But anyway there seems to be some information that suggests a lot of the aftermarket rubber is nitrile rubber and it gets effected by ethanol fuel in a very negative way, and the solution is to use components with high quality viton rubber.

I’m just wondering… is OEM my only option to get quality viton rubber components, or do I have more affordable alternatives?
 
The float needles by themselves on Mike’s XS didn’t seem too badly priced, although adding shipping it’s a big gamble if they end up being cheap rubber as well.

I have a suspicion that the brass seat is OK since it didnt leak right out of the gate and I doubt anything changed with regard to the brass itself.

But asking google if I could get away with a cheap float needles and needle seat was a wake up slap in the face. Google’s AI assistant must be taking notes on what yall have been posting because it had A LOT of references to xs650.com that popped up😁
 
I can live with $10.99 apiece for new needles if I must.

Jim said:
Jets-R-Us has 'em, but you won't like their price either. And they don't say if it's a repop or OEM.

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They are selling just the needle for $10.99

I might give that a go. Eat ramen next week instead of my usual steak dinners

A geniune viton tip would make me sleep better at night
 

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Here’s an update:

I took the left bowl off today and tested the needle by lifting the float up with my finger, applying as minimal pressure as possible and it worked great, no fuel coming past the seat.

I put it back together, still leaked

Took the bowl back off, this time I removed the float and the needle, cleaned the seat by spraying carb and choke cleaner up into it thru the straw tip full blast. Inspected the needle, looked good. So I shook the plastic float and float tested it, everything checked out good.

So I put it all back together and turned fuel back on, still leaking.


So I took it apart again and tested the needle yet again by pressing my finger ever so lightly against the float and it worked great.

So i put the bowl back on and tested again, still leaking.

About at my wit’s end and baffled, I had one idea left, that maybe the float was getting stuck to the inside of the bowl somehow, somewhere. So while the bowl was still full of fuel, just after it had been flooding out of the airbox, I loosened the screws on the float, jiggled it, tapped it with the bottom of a screwdriver, then reseated the bowl and tightened it down.

Finally, no more fuel leaking.


So it stands to reason(from my viewpoint) that somehow the plastic float got jammed in the bowl and wouldn’t float up and shut the needle.

I’m not sure how to prevent this from ever happening again except maybe to adjust the limit tang on the float so that it can’t open as much when the bowl level gets really low(from sitting and fuel evaporating) or drained.


That’s all I can think of for now, but I will say I was just about to order some new needles about halfway through this shebackle.

Bike is running good now, firing on both cylinders, idling nicely, good at wide open too.

The only maybe slight issue is there’s a tiny hiccup coming off idle into the mid if I twist the throttle really fast, and only sometimes…
So idk if I’m even worried about it. I can just throttle on a bit more slowly and smoothly instead of going from idle to fairly open in an instant
 

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