As you can imagine, it is a potentially sketchy endeavor to rebuild carburetors in the mail. Mechanics know this intuitively, and they and others know it because the simple fact is, carburetors are not the only thing requiring maintenance on a motorcycle, or even the most important thing. Cylinder compression is at the top of that list. Period. Virtually all vintage Hondas suffer from low cylinder compression, regardless of their mileage. Compression needs to be your number one priority. Most of my customers are not aware that their valves need adjusting every 1500 to 3000 miles, or that valve recession is a significant issue on old Hondas and frequently is the cause of poor running. Nor have they learned that this extreme valve wear combined with fairly rapid cylinder wear plagues 40-50 year old Hondas and causes them to have far less cylinder compression than they were manufactured with.

And of course there is more. Another thing customers frequently overlook is ignition service. There is a strange, inexplicable block in most vintage riders' minds on this subject. Point ignition Hondas especially need to have their ignition systems serviced and adjusted and completely squared away before the carburetors are yanked off the bike. They are virtually never right after being neglected for decades. To fail to give them needed attention is hasty and unwise. And the later models' electronic ignition does not let you completely off the hook. It needs much of the same attention as does the point system. Not only timing, but advancer condition, point cleanliness and condition, primary wiring integrity, spark plug wire security, spark plug cap condition, the condition of the key and kill switches, and the battery, and of course the state of the spark plugs themselves.