Beware the Red Shop Rag in Carb Service.

[hodakamax]

In my latest Day One Project, I've removed and disassembled the carb literally dozens of times. Early on I noticed a pilot jet being clogged by lint from a red shop rag. After that I didn't wipe anything in the carb with a shop cloth but on its last assembly I assembled the carb on a red shop cloth. Yesterday on the final photo shoot of the project the bike slowly lost its low end power until finally becoming unrideable. A tear down this morning revealed the same culprit. While photographing the evidence, the lint kept jumping to the jet and it became evident that during assembly lint was jumping from the rag to the carb due to static electricity. My advice is to never assemble a carb on a shop cloth.

For what its worth, advice from:

Max

[viclioce]

Amazing!!! I use old terry cloth towels with a bit of oil on them! Keeps the lint to a minimum! ; D Victor

[socalhodaka]

Nice lighting.

[Bill2001]

Very good lighting, indeed.

I've found that currently available red shop rags are horrid. Very linty, and I use them for stage1 cleaning (very grubby) and use laundered terrycloth for final cleaning.