To own a bike would be every man's dream and why not, to have one is an ultimate joy. There is a sense of freedom that only a bike rider can experience of riding bikes. They are a style statement for men and also the decent modes of commuting providing some economy to and from the work.
Any motorbikes we see today are definitely fuel efficient. Let us not talk about the Ducatis and the HDs for sometime; they are not bought for being fuel efficient.
So, bikes in general would ask for a little maintenance and they serve us long for whatever minimum care they receive. However, to keep your bike in ship shape and at optimum performance level, there are certain things that you need to do periodically; adjust or say tune the carburetor.
Carburetion is a little complex subject in bike maintenance only if you didn't know about it so far. Just a little understanding about it could actually chase your fears far and you can do the fine tuning at the comforts of your home on a regular basis saves on your time and penny and you and your bike will have a long life together.
Carburetor is a device that actually mixes the fuel and air to allow the process of combustion to happen which generates the power. In fact, engines per se would not function without a carburetor. Most bikes made lately are coming with digitalized fuel injectors which are a replacement to carburetors; however, carburetor is still a common thingy in many bikes. It doesn't hurt to have some idea about carburetors and their tweaking.
If the carburetor is not cleaned and tweaked regularly, then its ability to govern combustion process could be hampered, which results poor run and also poor mileage. Carburetor tweaking ensures that the engine receives right amount of fuel; not too less not too high, just that right amount. Tweaking the carburetor will so ensure fuel economy.
Things needed to carburetor adjustment:
A carburetor cleaner
Soft cotton cloth
Screwdriver
An RPM guage
Using a bike carburetor cleaner(solvent) and take off the settled dust and dirt from your carburetor. See that all ports as well as the jets are cleaned. Then, slowly remove the oil deposits clogging which could deter the smooth idling of engine. For this take a clean cotton cloth and remove the deposits and the cleaner from the carburetor. Never use crude wires to remove deposits; which can actually ruin the calibration that your carburetor is set to.
Start the bike engine and idle it for a while until say the engine gets warmed up. You can figure out the mixture screw which will be present near the barrel on one side. It is actually at right angle to the carburetor barrel and a little below the half of the barrel's length.
Now remove vacuum hose/tube from the carburetor and fix RPM gauge to the port to which the vacuum hose was attached on the carburetor. The RPM gauge should be able to read RPMs of at least 1400 RPMs.
Using screwdriver slowly turn the mixture screw in a clockwise direction until the engine runs at max; high idling on a bike engine will be 1400 RPMs.
Now with the screwdriver turn the screw anticlockwise just until you hear the idle run to the point where it starts cutting off. Normal RPM will be around 1000.
Remove the RPM gauge and fix the vacuum hose to the vacuum port of the carburetor and ensure if the engine is smooth after removing the RPM gauge. In case you hear that the carburetor cuts out at the idle, just turn the idle screw a little up to a point where it is running at 1000 RPM range.