Randall Washington, aka "Randakk"
President and Chief Executive Rider
Chapel Hill, NC USA
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Return to main Tech Tips Index More on Aftermarket Float ValvesYou might consider this item: Randakk's GL1000 Carb Rebuild Video As of this writing, Honda still stocks the OEM float valve sets for the GL1000.
If you don't know the prior history of your carbs, identify the status of your current float valves. OEM seats have Keihin logo marks and a "1.0" flow rating mark…otherwise, they are aftermarket One nice thing about the OEM float valve set from Honda is that it also includes the inlet screen, which is not provided with any aftermarket GL1000 float valves. Despite a rather notorious reputation for dubious quality, Keyster, K&L NAPCO and other aftermarket float valves are mostly fine these days I believe. However, it is critical that any aftermarket float valve that you might use must have a valve "pin" that measures at least 11.8 mm from rubber point to un-compressed, spring-loaded tip. This assumes you are using the aftermarket float pin with a float seat which has the same vertical aspect dimension as the OEM float seat. In the past, problems arose with bad batches of aftermarket float sets which had valve needles that were too short. These were either manufacturing errors or packaging mistakes. In these cases, no matter how high you set the floats, the valves would never close completely. Flooding was inevitable. Aftermarket float seats are also fine so long as they are dimensionally equivalent to the stock part. There is still some risk if you purchase aftermarket float sets that you will receive merchandise from these prior bad lots. Just to be safe, no matter what combination of float seat / float pin parts you use, you need to make one more check. There should be nominal clearance between the outer "shoulder" of the float seat and the pin valve spring "clip" when the rubber tip is resting on the bottom of the seat with no pressure other than gravity. The "clip" is the wire retainer that surrounds the float "tang." Make this check with the carbs upside down on your bench. I don't actually measure this, I just eyeball to make sure there is some visual clearance. A bit of clearance is good...no clearance is very bad! If the aftermarket float pin is too short and / or the aftermarket float valve seat is too thick, the "clip" will bottom on seat shoulder before the rubber tip can do its job of controlling the fuel flow. I make this visual check on all carbs I re-do. I've never found a problem of this nature with OEM parts but you never know when there might be a packaging mix up or the like. Even more problems with aftermarket float valves discussed here. Warning: There are some aftermarket carb kits in the market that insinuate that they include genuine Honda float valve / seat assemblies. This disingenuous claim is highly dubious. Unless you receive these float sets in a sealed Honda package with a Honda part number, you are not being supplied with genuine Honda merchandise. Return to main Tech Tips Index Intellectual Property Notice: All material appearing in this website is the property of Randall Washington, and is protected under United States and international copyright laws. The photographs, text and other content may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, stored, or manipulated in any manner without the express written permission of Randall Washington. For more information on the use of material from this website, click here |