Finally got around to taking care of a lot of schoolwork so I have some time to do this, as promised.

Gathering the parts
For this project, you will need:
* standard airline tubing (check the pet aisle of your local grocery store, or a pet store. My 20 feet of it was less than $4 American)
* tape (masking or duct, I used masking since it was what I had)
* ATF (automatic transmission fluid - just buy the cheapest stuff you can find)
* something long you can tape the tubing to (I used some wood lying around the house, a yard/meterstick would work fine)

Putting it all together
You want to put the tubing so it makes a U around the long item, which I'll refer to as the yardstick from now on. Basically, you want to make the tubing have a good two or three feet of extra tubing from the top of the yardstick. This will let you run the tubing to the carb boots without moving the thing around too much. Tape the tubing into place.

Now, stick one end of the tubing into the ATF and suck on the other end of the tubing. Try to get about 3/4 of the way up the yardstick on either side. Let the device sit for a bit afterwards for an hour or two to let the fluid settle. If you have too much in it, you can either blow out the excess or, if you haven't cut the tubing to length yet, make a loop at the bottom with the excess tubing.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here is an example one (not mine):
http://www.screaming3d.com/pics/cb/synchtool.jpg

And here's a picture of mine:
http://www.screaming3d.com/pics/cb/balancer.jpg

If you have a vacuum operated petcock like my Radian and want to use your gas tank, cut up an extra section of about two feet or so of the airline tubing. This allows you to have a longer reach to the gas tank when you move it from its mounting location.

Balancing the carbs
Read this page for some background: http://www.dansmc.com/balancecarbs.htm . I put my bike up on the centerstand, pulled the tank off to the side so I could access the nipples on the carb boots and attached the device. Fire the bike up with the lines attached. Basically, if a carb is pulling more ATF into it than the other, you need to adjust them. I balanced carb one against two, then three, then four. Might not be the best way to do it, but it was sure better than it was. You might want to balance one to two, then three to four, then one to three (or four). This ensures the banks of carbs are balanced against each other.

The screw you are looking for is this one:


There are a total of three of them. One for carbs one/two, one for carbs three/four and one for the left carb bank (one and two) and the right bank (three and four).

Here is a quickie diagram on how to set up the lines for balancing carbs one and two:


And one and three:


(Please forgive my lack of art skills, I'm a computer scientist for a reason. )

While this guide is for four cylinder bikes, a bike with two or three carbs should be quite similar. Any questions, please feel free to ask. And forgive any typos and whatnot, I'm exhausted from school.

Many thanks to ronboskz650sr for giving me instruction on how to build and use one of these myself - saved some money on it, that's for sure! That's also his balancer pictured in the walk-through.

(3/24/05: added a picture of my balancer)

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Practicing the dark and forgotten art of using turn signals since '98.

Excellent post. Any suggestions on how to get fuel to the engine safely with the fuel tank out? The whole deal sounds kind of dangerous.

You should be able to put an extended tube on the pitcock and prop the tank up or hang it from something.

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Ride safe...God bless!
-Ron

On my service manual it is said to sync carbs 1-2 then 3-4 and then use the center screw to sync both pairs. Which I already did and it went fine.

Did the manometer described above but used 10-w30 oil , it was a little slow to move but it did the job anyway.

Justs did it today, really helped my idle speed and throttle response.

BeerBaron

Good point..slide carbs and cv carbs are different. See manual for specifics. Also some slide carb set-ups apparently have a refence carb that doesn't adjust as much as the others, and you synch the other three to it. I read about this at another forum, so the manual is always the best way.

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Ride safe...God bless!
-Ron

Some CV carbs (Like the ones on an xj650) also have a non-adjustable carb.

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“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
- Soren Kierkegaard (19th century Danish philosopher)

You could place a longer fuel line on the tank and move it off to the side or you could use a pop/soda bottle as a temporary gas tank. To do this, you will need to make some kind of fitting that runs from the neck of the bottle to your fuel line to the carbs. An idea I just thought of is you could drill a hole in the plastic screw-on top of the container, insert a fuel line and seal it up with a gasoline-proof sealer of some kind. Then, fill the bottle with some gas, flip it upside down (so the top part with your fuel line is facing down) and poke a hole on the other end so air can get in. Hang it somewhere and away you go!

Just remember, in case of disaster, have a fire extinguisher on hand.

I should really do that next time I fiddling with my fuel system.

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Practicing the dark and forgotten art of using turn signals since '98.

I use a fuel tank off an old lawnmower motor. The kind that have a shutoff are the best. Just attach a longer piece of tubing in place of the regular fuel tube and bungee it to the handlebar or the back of a chair, etc. Just needs to be higher than the carbs for gravity feed.

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Let me get this straight... it's one down and four up, right?

I used a 20 ounce pop bottle with a nipple that comes on bottles of gear lube (threads match). Filled it about 1/3 of the way, stuck the nipple into the hose going into the carb, turned it on end and tied it to the frame with a piece of wire. I zip tied it the first time but that is a pain when you need to add more gas, so I recommend tieing. Also put a small pin hole in the side at about the half way mark for ventilation. Make sure it is in the middle so when you disconnect it and go to sit it down gas won't come out of the vent hole.

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1978 Honda CB400T
Outta the basket, and into the shop.

2004 Arctic Cat DVX400

Would anyone be interested in pictures of my syncer in action? My carbs are out of balance again ( ) and I need to get them taken care of before a long ride on Saturday.

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Practicing the dark and forgotten art of using turn signals since '98.