Re-Sleeve a carb

[jerry]

I hear there's a bloke in Melbourne who re sleeves Amal carbies. Does anyone have the contact details. Is he any good, perhaps an idea of the cost. Thanks J

[LWC82PE]

yes i used to use him all the time. Its not that he does a bad job, its just that now many are relising why the process of re-sleeving is not the ideal slution. Heres my recommendation now

DONT GET AMALS RELEEVED! at least if they can are a common one that can be bought brand new (see Burlen site UK or Surrey cycles or Amal UK or British spares NZ etc)

I will tell you why. What he does and other carb re-sleevers do is bore out the carby. If this is a flange mount it makes them weak at the flange mounts and they very easily distort when people do the 2 bolts/nuts up a bit too tight, its not hard to do. This makes the carby get out of shape and the slide jams etc. Also heat from the heads contributes to this.

Also they then sleeve the slide with stainless steel. With a lot of the amals, because they dont have modern rubber cable boots like the jap carbies, water can run down and get into the carby. When water mixes with the stainless steel and the alloy body you get a chemical reaction, sort of an electrolyis and the slides will seize and pick up metal and drag it to the top of the carby. Also moisture can get in under the cap as theres no rubber gasket like a VM Mikuni or what ever.

Basically the re-sleeve job can be ok first up but you really want to try keep moisture out the carby which can be a full time job. For a VMX race bike that gets muddy and washed forget it. Ive had enough problems on road bikes that never even get wet and hardly ridden and moisture still gets in the carbys and the chemical reaction starts between the SS sleeve and the zinc alum body.

Also , you can get these carbs sleeved to fix up your slide slop but your ability to tune them may be no different if the needle seat is damaged. Often people will over tighten the screw and damage the seat which cant be fixed so you can spend all that money on re-sleeving but the carb can still be stuffed.

For these reasons i no longer use any carby re-sleeving service unless its on a really rare Amal you cant by brand new.

You can buy brand new Amal concentrics for $200 or less these days and I think they are almost cheaper than resleeving or at least not much more.

Many of the bikes that i have delt with that have re-sleeved Amals have always been nothing but trouble after awhile like a few years down the track. Your forever in there with wet and dry sanding the carby bore and slide just to get the damn things to stop sticking. In the end they get diced and we put new ones on.

My recomendation is to just get a whole new carby.

If you still want to suss this guy out, hes in Just bikes magazine. Theres 2 guys in SA that do it to but one i would not recommend as he is a bit of a theif because i know a guy who sent is Amal GP or TT carby to the guy and the re-sleev guy kept it and returned a normal garden variety Amal back to him and wouldnt return the ownwers GP/TT carb which are really rare and disirable. He was told the carby was stuffed/beyond repair (it wasnt)and passed off some excuss. In the end the owner had to threaten him with legal action to get his correct carby returned. Eventually the the guy did give the GP/TT carby back. So i wouldnt send anything to that guy if hes known to steal your good parts!

[montynut]

You can buy oversize slides made of brass in the UK which overcomes most of the sleeving issues except the distortion problem. The new carbies are also better material and do not wear like the originals.

[jerry]

Thanks guys. Every time I ask a question I learn. Thanks for making the time to reply. Cheers Jerry

[LWC82PE]

The new carbies are also better material and do not wear like the originals.

Yeah thats right. The only problems ive had with the new Amals is that sometimes the factory hasnt set the tickler right and you can tap on it till your blue in the face and you just cant get it to fill up with fuel. It just takes some adjusting of the tickler so it will reach to press on the float. Another thing is that ive often found machining swarf/debris blocking orifices and jets so before you fit a new Amal check that first. Ive found this on more than one occasion and its something the factory should do but sometimes i think they are a little slack.

[jerry]

Is tockler a real word? J

[T250K]

It sure is, A Tockler is a Watchmaker's apprentice  .

[Hoony]

or a male porn star

[jerry]

Staring Tockler Hoon?

[LWC82PE]

Its tickler. Fixed it

[T250K]

So now we're talking about a Watchmaker's WIFE !!     Lucky Bastard.    .