Before I get to the carb issue, here's the history. Took on a 1980 185 project for a co-worker who's son inherited this machine from his grandfather. It had a supposedly "no-spark" issue with potential carb cleaning needed. You've all seen this scenario before!
I got spark just replacing the boot so check that off.
It made some noise after spraying some fuel in the cylinder so now for the carb.
The carb:
1. It was missing the second small gasket under the spring and washer on the air/idle screw so I put one in and turned out the air/idle screw 2 turns.
2. Thoroughly cleaned the carb body, needle/seat and main jet.
3. Set the float at 12.5 mm
4. Made sure the needle is set to the second notch on the throttle. It has a new throttle cable on it which seems correct.
Note: If you notice in the picture the pilot jet is pressed in so I didn't remove it to clean. Is this normal, can I just pull it out? Any other ones I've seen screw out so this is baffling me?
It runs incredibly rich at idle even after repeated cleanings and see carb cleaner/compressed air come from every orifice. It has great throttle response at mid and high revs and doesn't smoke at all.
Next Steps:
1. I'm getting the carb ultrasonically cleaned this week and will reset everything to factory settings.
2. If that doesn't solve the problem, I'm leaning toward a Shindy carb kit from eBay.
Any other suggestions for the carb issue?
It's in really nice shape with decent plastics, seat and mechanically sound for brakes, bearings etc. They want to tow a wagon around their acreage so I donated and installed a trailer hitch.
It has a bubba fit 110 tank on it which someone taped up one of the fuel delivery pipes to the carb. Must have leaked like a sieve! I installed a 'Y' fitting and replaced all the lines to at least make it safe.
They had a completely wrong front brake handle on it and the cable was seized. I donated a handle and ordered a Motion Pro cable from eBay.
The hand grips were wrecked so I replaced those with cheaper "Moose" ones and made replacement handle bar end protectors from plastic ones I had.
The foot peg rubbers were falling apart so I located a decent used set near me for $20.00.