Draining Carb Bowls with Carbs on Bike

[WingMan71]

I drained my carbs on the bike today! Actually figured out an easy way to do it.

Now that my ’87 is not my daily rider anymore, she needs to be properly put up for the short Atlanta winters. I do the usual “fill the gas tank to the top with fresh gas with fuel stabilizer in it” routine, but I really wanted to drain the carb fuel bowls too.

Because of the position of the fuel bowl drains I really couldn’t see any way to hook up a drain hose to any of them except #3 (rear on right side). You can actually reach in there on #3 and hook up a hose as shown below.



8/16/17 EDIT: Damn Photobucket! I'll try to add these pics back in as attachments.

   

TURN OFF THE FUEL PETCOCK! Don't forget to turn off the fuel petcock valve before you start draining!

You can absolutely forget about reaching the three other carb drains with your fingers to hook up a drain hose!

Well… I wasn’t giving up that easy so I built myself this handy GL1200 carb drain tool.



   

TOOL DETAILS: It’s about an 18 inch piece of fuel hose with a right-angle plastic elbow I had laying around the shop. I think it was an old pollution control fitting off of an old car I had. But, you can use whatever plastic elbow you have as long as it has a BIGGER inside diameter than the outside diameter of the fuel bowl drain spout. You can’t have a tight fitting elbow since you can’t get in there to push it onto the drain. This way, just the stiff fuel hose will be enough to hold it in place on the bowl drain.

Some Disassembly Required: Of course you will have to remove the spark plug guards and the spark plug boots to see and get at the carb fuel bowl drains.

So, here's my drain tool hooked up to Carb #1 and ready to drain.



   

Note: You have to snake the drain hose past Carb #3 and push it through until it’s under the Carb #1 bowl drain. You can see that it's not quite on the drain spout yet in this picture. Next step is to reach in there with a long screwdriver and wiggle it into position on the drain.

Now lets move onto the left side and Carbs #4 and #2.

OOPS! The tool was TOO BIG to fit on the left side carbs so I had to modify it as shown below.

Note that on my bike, for some reason, the drain spouts on #4 and #2 were really short, barely 1/8". So, no way to press fit a fuel hose onto them even if you could reach them!



   

I had to remove the spare port from the elbow and also shorten it a bit to get it to fit in the tighter spaces on Carbs #4 and #2. The height of the elbow from bottom to top is ONE INCH. Anything taller and you won’t be able to fit it in place under the drains.

Here it is in place on Carb #4.



   

It’s hard to get this one on there because of the vacuum hoses that are in the way, but if you wiggle it around behind the vacuum hoses you can get it onto the bowl drain.

Now on to the last one… Carb #2.



EDIT: Well... last attachment is missing. Apparently there is a 5 attachment limit per post?

So, my fuel bowls have been successfully drained while on the bike and I can put her to bed for the winter!

Hope this helps out some others who may want to drain their carbs on the bike before storing.

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[roscoepc]

Great Post and Everyone loves Pic's!!!!!!!!!!

[bs175dths]

This is not as good as draining the carburetors as you did, and those pictures were awesome.
You can always turn off the fuel at the petcock and run the engine until the engine quits. Let the engine sit for a minute, then start the engine, using the choke if necessary, and the engine will run just a little longer, then quit again. Try this one or two more times, but don't run the starter too long....
Again, this is not as definite as draining each bowl as you have, but it is an alternate way to lower the fuel level in the bowls away from those itty-bitty jets we all have.

-Ride On

[WingMan71]

This is not as good as draining the carburetors as you did, and those pictures were awesome.
You can always turn off the fuel at the petcock and run the engine until the engine quits. Let the engine sit for a minute, then start the engine, using the choke if necessary, and the engine will run just a little longer, then quit again. Try this one or two more times, but don't run the starter too long....
Again, this is not as definite as draining each bowl as you have, but it is an alternate way to lower the fuel level in the bowls away from those itty-bitty jets we all have.

-Ride On

I've actually tried running the engine until it quits a couple of times. Both times the fuel pump made such a loud clatter when it started sucking air and not fuel that I was afraid to keep going fearing I would damage the fuel pump. Noise kept getting worse and bike never stopped running, so I abandoned the effort.

I'm curious to know if that loud of a clatter from the fuel pump is normal when attempting to run the bike dry, or was it just mine.

At any rate, now that I've made my handy dandy little carb draining tool, I think I'll stick with my new method.

Love my GL1200! Gotta take good care of her.

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[collector]

You could unplug the fuel pump or take the fuse out.

[bs175dths]

I'm curious to know why Mom Honda decided not to include a drain hose since the drain screws are accessible. Almost as if they felt the finish on the cylinder block was up to the chore of withstanding the hazards of fuel.

Or maybe, they had such high confidence in their design, that we, owners of said fantastic design, would not let the bikes sit for more than a day..... or two.

After I serviced the carburetors on my bike (which had sat for two years) I would run the engine for a few minutes (watching the water temperature) every two or three days. The bike had many issues which needed to be addressed, so after a couple of weeks of doing my run time routine, my wife asked why I was letting the engine run. I explained the small jets, the benefits of 'letting the juices flow', blowing out the cobwebs, yadda, yadda, yadda, and she understood.
(of course, I also enjoyed listening to my handy work)
(( and she was probably thinking, 'he just wants to listen to it run'.))

I like your idea and plan on using it the next time I have the need.

-Ride On

[SIR tricky]

I have never drained the carbs since I had the bike in 85. I used to run them dry (switching off the petcock)

I now use seafoam and keep the tank topped up. I would go out and run the bike for a while on a day when I could leave the garage door open, let the bike run till the engine reach a good temperature, I keep the battery on a "Battery Tender Junior" because of any drain due to clock and radio memory.

[85GL1200I]

Maybe I'm lazy, but I've never drained my carbs or done anything special for winter layup, other than remove battery and store in heated basement. I've ridden as late as Dec 24 and as early as Valentines day. I do admire your ingenuity and your bike looks pristine!

[SIR tricky]

If you used an Odyssey battery you could get even lazier, you could leave the battery on the bike just disconnect the NEG lead.

Odyssey batteries will keep their charge for up to two years..... and the colder the better.

The reason I keep mine on the Battery tender is that I am too lazy to disconnect the NEG lead

[Milesofsmiles]

Ingenious and great instructions c/w photos to follow.

[WingMan71]

Well... Photobucket sure has done a huge disservice to the many motorcyclists who share information and procedures, etc. on this an other forums! Thanks to their demand for $400.00/year to continue 3rd party hosting pictures, thousands of helpful posts are now much less useful because the pictures are missing! What a bunch of azz-hats!

Anyway, here's the last picture for my original post showing the the connection to carb #2.

   

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[WingMan71]

Wow!

Photobucket must have finally caved to public pressure and criticism. All of my original pics hosted on their site are now displaying in my post again.

Glad to see it.