Hello,

I have an '82 honda 185s that i just recently pulled out of the shed after being stored for 20 years, last summer i was having problems with the carb, so i just went and bought a brand new one. It now runs, just really poorly. First of all it backfires mostly on deceleration, it takes forever to warm up so that it runs half decent with open choke, doesnt idle, The pull start is very stiff to pull and often locks up (I dont know if that has anything to do with the carb or not, i have the decompression cable but do not know how to correctly hook it up the starter), also gas leaks out of the back of the carb into the air tank after use (don't know if this is happening during use but i assume not) and finally I cant smoothly shift into first gear without stalling it.

From what i have read in th owner's manual , I know of 2 carb adjustment screws: the pilot screw and the throttle stop screw. The pilot screw i adjusted to the factory recommended setting, 2 full turns from a fully closed position. The throttle screw i adjusted back and forth hoping i could get it to idle but didnt really get it good enough.

Can anyone tell me about the adjustment screws on the carb and what effects they have on the performance and/or tell me the correct settings?

Thanks alot,

Connor

 

Ok Connor, heres the deal.
You have a few problems. Let me talk about them one by one,

The deal with the fuel leaking out of the back of the carb is because the float is set too high or something is wrong with the needle/seat. Check it out and fix it.

The idle mixture screw is just that. It effects idle fuel mix only. You need to richen it up. Take it to 2.5 or 3 out if you can. This should help the starting problem.

It sounds like you are also lean in the main jet. Maybe, maybe not? Fix the float and idle mix first, then if your still lean go up two to three sizes on the main jet. You can also pull the jet out of the old carb and put it in the new carb and see how that runs.

 

okay, so i took apart the carb and set the floats at 12.5mm from gasket (factory spec) and tried to start it. Float bowl was bone dry, so i kept moving it down till it was finally getting gas. I moved the e-clip on the jet needle from the 3rd notch up to the 2nd (recommended in the manual). I turned the pilot screw out to three full turns and yes the cable seems to be easier to pull but it still takes awhile to start up. Ive found that the easiest way to start it is to pull a few times, then shut the gas off, then as soon as it catches turn the gas back on. So when i finally get it started up it sounds good with closed choke (still doesn't idle with closed choke) then when its warmed up i open the choke the revs skyrocket to what seems like 1/3 throttle, then after a little while of that it starts to go higher then drops down to really low rpms then goes back up. The frequency of this is about 5-10 secs. I tried adjusting the pilot screw and the throttle stop screw while it was doing this, it didn't seem to have any effect. Then when i finally shut it off or it stalls, gas is still dripping from the back of the carb! One thing that i have noticed is that the backfiring doesn't seem to be as bad, im not really sure of this because i haven't actually tried riding it that much. But i notice this high/low rpm problem when im riding it at lower rpms.

Im stumped, whatever i try i am just totally defeated by this thing.

Thanks for any help,

Connor

 

For all the time you spent wrenching on this carb, you could have purchased a brand new one for 60 bucks and been done with it. The onslaught of cheap chinese ATV parts on our shores don't always have a negative impact.
The old carbs on the 185 and 200 engines dont have a needle valve seat that is removable and is the cause for over 90% of carb problems that we see these days (25+ years later ofcourse) and there is no fix for repairing it.
Replacing the carb is the only answer and while 200 bucks for a quality OEM carb from Honda or Sunpro is a great product,... doesnt make much sense to when the Cinese copies, believe it or not, have had a reputation for holding up just as well and go for under 75 dollars everywhere on the internet.
Since early 2007, I've sold over a couple dozen of these and not a single one has came back for any carb repair and nor have I had any complaints on performance.
Another source for these "cheap" carburetors is on ebay.

 

KNOWSALOT,

That is exactly what i did, i fumbled withe the original carb for a while then got fed up and bought a brand new one, still doesnt work. The model numbers arnt exactly the same but the mounts, throttle valve, jets, size are all the same. Even the same brand.

 

I have a atc 200 which is close to your 185s. The two things i could think of are the wrong jet size or a air leak some where after the carb. The rubber boot could be cracked. First look and see if the jets are messed up. If that dont work try this, it may sound stupid, but get carb cleaner and spray the boot in front of the carb while it is wamed up and running. If there is a leak it will reve up alot more than it did before. That is what i would do.

 

nickdodd25,

So i checked the intake manifold and no it is not cracked, checked out the jets, not sure if the main jet can be adjusted, I'm assuming so but don't know if i should screw it in or out. Also what's the deal with the floats, I'm guessing that the high low rev thing is because of the floats but no matter what adjustment i do i cant seem to get it so that gas is actually getting to the carb but not leaking out of the back. Another thing, how do you correctly hook up the decomp cable in the starter? I've got it attached to the plastic piece obviously nothing happens because there is nothing to tension it.

I realize that these questions may be kind of vague but any help at all would be appreciated.

Connor

 

I will get you the decompresion instructions for you. and the specs on the carb. Something is weird on the carb.

 

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: nickdodd25

I will get you the decompresion instructions for you. and the specs on the carb. Something is weird on the carb.</end quote></div>

For the pilot screw turn it in till seats lightly. then turn out two full turns. With engine at operating temp adjust the idle speed. Then very slowly turn the pilot screw clockwise until engine stops. Then turn out one full turn. If nessasary readjust the idle speed.

For the decompression cable i will get pictures. I am puting a new recoil on mine and i will show you how to do it.

 

Ok so i tryed everything that everyone said and did help some, it does work a little better, but have narrowed it down to two main issues: the backfiring and carb leaking.

After several attempts on adjusting the carb and not much luck i thought it might be either an air leak somewher or an ignition problem. So i did a compreesion test, the compression is 142 psi on a cold engine. The manual says 156 +-14 psi on warm engine, so i thought that was good. Then i checked the resistance on the the ignition coil and the CDI, it was all normal. Measured the air between the rotor in the CDI, good enough. Only inspected the spark on the spark plug visually because i wasn't sure how to measure it, and i could see spark.

So after all that i went back to the carb, the first thing i tried was to get the floats set properly. From what i could understand in the manual is that the float level is the point at which the float needle completely shuts off the gas. so i set that to be 14mm (parallel to gasket). After that i removed the float bowl and hooked the carb up the the petcock and moved the floats up to the float level and the gas completely stopped dripping. Then sprayed a bit of WD-40 on the float pin and ensured that the floats were moving freely. Then after all that i reassembled everything back onto the bike, started it up, shut it off and gas was now dripping from the float bowl gasket instead of the breather pipe on the back throat of the carb, similar to the rate of the drip from the petcock. I figured that the gasket didnt really matter because the fuel level isn't supposed to get that high anyway. I did notice that the petcock was leaking so i put an order in for a new one, but that shouldn't make a difference on the float issue. Please note that the carb dripped when i first started working on the bike, with a brand new carb, with different float needles and all the adjustments i have done.

As for the backfiring issue, I assume that when doctor turbo said go up a couple sizes on the main jet he meant the jet needle. So i moved it to the second notch. But the main jet isn't adjustable, is it? If not # jet should i try? or should i wait and see what how it works with a new petcock? Because im pretty sure the current one is clogged and not flowing well.

Well i don't think i could possibly give any more information on this, sorry for the long post.

Thanks

Connor