Sticking Slide

[grumpy56]

1970 T350. Thought my sticking slide might be caused by the carb flanges being tweaked. They were tweaked quite a bit, but was able to get the entire flange surface pretty close to flat by sanding them on a plate of glass. However, that is not the solution as the slide still sticks. I've sanded the slides and it seemed to work OK in the past, but now it is real tight. Any suggestions on how to ream the carb bore or take a thou or two off the slide? Thanks.

[Alan H]

Does the slide work OK when the carb is off the engine?

Find the problem and sort that. It's not usually a tight slide.
If you make the slide smaller by grinding/rubbing down. you're just sorting the problem and not the cause.

[Vintageman]

Like Alan H ask -> carb flange not bolted to the engine does it still stick?

If not then it is being distorted when it is bolted (very common for this carb this bike). I use fresh split lock washer and soon as washer is flat I stop tightening nut... very little torque to do this. I also use fresh flange O'ring. Never loosened up. (suppose you could use lock nut etc.). In fact it seams to improve with time and I can tighten it a little more no issues, but don't need to.

I would not remove material from the slide other than scratches.

I take the guide pin out of carb body and use Mother's Aluminum Polish and fine steel wool. It will take a thou off maybe and clean up well.

I have several sets of these carbs and if bolted too tight slide(s) stick...more so towards WOT None of mine stick today. I don't mess with flange surface.

Someone here put carb body into a vise and squeezed it in just the right way (?) and claimed it fixed it. well, I never had to do that but suppose.

[grumpy56]

No, slide does not move freely even with carb off of bike. How do you remove the guide pin? Thanks.

[Vintageman]

How do you remove the guide pin?

With a punch a little smaller in diameter. Be careful not to loose pin (short) once you punch it through.

Update: Make sure not throttle cable not sticking at junction where 1 cable goes to 3, just in case

[grumpy56]

Hello all. Finally getting back to the sticking slide. I can't seem to attach the pic, something about board attachment quota has been reached, but the blue engineers goop is practically all over half the bore (indicating a tight fit) after I coated the slide and pushed it on through. Not what I wanted to see. Any thoughts? Also, Vintageman, I may need to remove the guide for the slide if I have to re-bore the carb body. Do you punch it from the outside of the carb into the bore or the other way? Thanks.

[Alan H]

If you rebore the carb body it's shot. The slide will be too loose and leak air past itself.
Soak the carb in thinners to loosen the blue stuff and clean it off. The slide should drop in nice.
If you really want to remove the pin, then it should be pulled out from the inside and replaced the same way.
If you knock it through you'll total the carb body.

[old racer]

Alan the idea of boring the body is to sleeve it back to standard size.

[Alan H]

The sleeve would be so thin, it would be plating.
There must be another carb somewhere in the world.
A GT550 is 1.5 x a 305, so try those carbs - or a pair - (left and right - different jets in centre).

[grumpy56]

Appreciate the posts. I took some 400 grit sandpaper and got it to slide with no resistance. Hopefully I didn't take too much off to cause air leakage. Will know once I get it together I suppose.