Was that bike in a flood? Can't imagine how else that carb got to looking that bad. Hope you figure it out Nick.

Typical JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) cross head screw someone attacked viciously with a Phillips.

I'm sure the rest of them look the same.

Haha, I'm not sure how it ended up looking the way it does, but it's probably got a lot to do with me living in the Northeast and not having a garage. This bike gets ridden daily in all kinds of weather, and sees roughly 10K miles per year between the snow season. It's never had this issue before so I guess 16 years ain't bad.

Carb cleaner really doesn't do much to the grime on here though. I've sprayed and rubbed and sprayed and rubbed over and over and it doesn't look any prettier for the effort.

Not sure what else to do with it besides salvaging the inner parts and moving them over to a replacement carb. That mechanism just doesn't wanna move anymore, and though the accelerator pump seems weak in that the black rubber piece pushes it down a bit a rest, I've opened it up and the internal section of the accelerator pump looks brand new. Go figure.

What a mess, and of all the times, just before winter.

I think I'd start looking for a new used carb. You may get what's bugging you now fixed, only to have to start on something else. Especially with it being exposed to the weather like it is.
Just my $.02

16 years is pretty darn good.

I may have a OEM carb packed away somewhere (just moved) Put her to rest for the winter and get ahold of me when you are ready for another carb. I'll find it and go thru it to make sure everything is in proper order if you you decide to go that route.

Brought the carb inside this morning and hit it with some carb cleaner, sponges, more carb cleaner, q-tips, and eventually some white lithium grease. After manipulating the linkages about a hundred times, they seemed to be falling back into their rhythm, so I removed the speed wires and continued moving them. The black rubber piece was no longer sitting flush against the stop screw, so the cleaning and grease must have freed up that spring a bit and got the range of motion back. That was a good sign. Maybe it was time to test it out.

The conditions were pretty awful with it being about 40 degrees this morning, but with cold fingers at the ready I hit the parking lot, pulled the dash and tank off and dropped the carb in to fire her up. Slow labored cranks did their best to get her to fire, but with a half dead battery there wasn't much that could be done. Suddenly I heard a loud bang. I remembered this noise, I'd heard it before just this past summer while at a gas station. The sound of my carb popping out of the manifold with force. I'd forgotten to tighten the hose clamp

Pulled the tank off again, tightened the manifold hose clamp, plugged everything back in and tried again. Battery was dead, or at least too dead to turn the starter effectively. Brought the car over into the adjacent space and whipped out the jumper cables. I'd heard something about this being bad for the bike, but potentially being less problematic if you don't turn the car on. With the car off I let the batteries equalize for a bit and tried again. Still nothing. The snow is coming tomorrow and I won't be able to get this bike out of here in time if I don't make this work! Fuck it, I'll try turning the car on, if I kill the battery I'll get a new one next year, as I'll surely kill this one anyways if I leave it here through the snowstorm. Fired up the car and gave it another few minutes, then went back to the bike to try again.

With a loud pop she roared to life, pumping out a steady idle with the enricher on. This was a good sign, with the carb in it's original messed up condition any use of the enricher would kill the bike. I grabbed the throttle for that moment of truth...would the throttle remain a kill switch as it had with previous tests? Vroom! A loud rumble and a steady rev. She's alive!

Took her for a spin around the block, then around a few more blocks before bringing her back home. She's running as good as she ever has, with a great throttle response and less backfiring. I'm playing no games with it this time though, after work tonight I'll ride her to the shop for winter storage, that front tire isn't long for this world and with the snow coming I can't change it this season anyways.

Thanks again for your help, hopefully the carb still has some life in it but if not, I'll be back here in the spring looking for a new one.

PS: As luck would have it, another vintage bike showed up for sale on craigslist that I'd give my left arm to own. If anyone out there is looking for a road star with a freshly cleaned carb, please contact me. I'm very flexible on price.

You might try some of the spray silicon for the outside of the carb. The folks in the marine world use it on just about everything that is exposed to the elements. Glad you got it going.