I'm helping a mate with a '77 Kawasaki Z400 that he was given as a project. It has been sat in a leaky shed for probably 18 years and there's a few signs that somebody's had issues they've not quite managed to fix properly - there's a fair bit of black tape on the loom and some electrics weren't working, like the starter. The bike has a kick start as well so I suspect the previous owner just put up with it.
I was up at his house last night to get an idea what we're playing with and managed to get a spark after one-bodging some wiring, and managed to get the solenoid back operational so we have a starter again.
At that point my mate wanted to go for trying to fire her up, but I suggested we check the contents of the carbs float bowls first and there was what could best be described as creosote in both...! I decided at that point that there was no way this was going to fire & ripped the carbs out to bring back to chez moi for overhauling.
This is after spending a couple of hours this morning with carb cleaner & brushes:
You can still make out the tide mark on the floats:
The jets were absolutely solid with varnish: I've managed to clear them all but there's still a load of mess to get out yet so I've invested in a proper ultrasonic bath big enough to take both carbs as they are, along with some specific cleaning solution. I've another 5 carbs currently in use that it wouldn't hurt to have a little buzzy bath from time to time as well, so this isn't a single purpose buy.
