Conventional wisdom seems to dictate that if a carb's left with petrol sat in it long enough, the resulting varnish means you have to chuck it. I decided to resurrect my old Fantic last week, which has been sitting for a little over 12 years, so I figured a new carb would be a definite. This seemed to be confirmed when I had to use a screwdriver to prise up the slide as the needle had glued itself to the emulsion tube. The floats were also glued to the pillars they used to slide up & down on, & the float bowl was coated with a rock-hard layer of brown muck. Despite all this, I decided to attack it with a can of Wynn's Fuel Injector & Carb Cleaner I had kicking around. All the removable bits were given a good squirt & left to soak, & all the passages in the main body squirted through. The brown muck softened up nicely, & a close up squirt with the impressively powerful Wynn's nozzle cleaned it off nicely. Carb back on bike, a bit of fresh fuel & a new plug, & it started 5th kick. A quick blast round Salisbury Plain showed that it was running fine - as scary as ever. So next time you stumble across a SOB with a smelly brown carb, I'd recommend giving Wynn's a go.
