How reliable is Shindy rebuild kit?

[tjakes680]

I have a86 LT quadrunner 230 shaft drive and I decided to do a rebuild on my carb a few months ago so I ordered a Shindy rebuild kit witch I have used on other machines in past and always was very happy with results. So problems start right after rebuild on my Mikuni VM 24 ss carb right from the start I had high rpm i couldn't control I found a hole in intake boot on fuel side and changed boot then I couldn't get enough fuel to carb I changed and used a OEM fuel pump I changed all fuel lines all vent lines all air box ducts and all parts are OEM also new throttle cable new fuel valve new fuel strainers in tank basically total new fuel and air system all OEM ! So I wind up finding a guy parting out same exact machine on ebay and has 2 OEM carbs so I buy both and 2 Shindy rebuild kits and rebuild them and still have same problem machine bogs out under load, finally fed up I buy a cheapo Chinese carb for 35$ and machine is running good not great but good ! So the other day cheapo carb starts leaking and I pull it off and take all of the OEM carbs go through them clean them again, not that they were dirty I use non ethanol fuel but they never worked anyway I install one same problem I go through all 3 same problem bog at load and one wont even idle at all so I fix leak on cheapo carb put it back works fine. Here is my thing im not a proffesonal mechanic but have owned and done enough work on machines that  I have owned in my 54 years of life and  I can not see me rebuilding 3  exact same carbs wrong I used Shindy rebuild kits on all 3 so are these kits reliable? I feel my main jet needs to be drilled out but why when im going stock with machine and its supposed to be 115 ? Anyone else experience problems with Shindy kits are there jets sized correctly ?Very frustrating 

[bellarmine]

Hi Jakes, Thought I'd comment on my experience with a Shindy kit.  I have a 1986 Kawasaki Bayou 300 owned since new.  Good machine, weak points in my opinion are the carburetor and starter.  Keihin CVK-32 vaccuum slide carb very picky about dirt.  Ever so often it won't start, I drain the float bowl helps it fire up (water?), then if it persists it's carb clean time.  Probably done it a dozen times now, do it in my sleep. 

Anyway, I decided at one point about 2014 to put in a new carb kit, since it still had all the original seals and jets from near 30 years before.   Like you I bought a Shindy kit, feeling they were good quality and Japanese for a Japanese ATV.

Well, from the get go I had a high unstable idle - either racing or died.  I'm not sure, the tiny washer on the pilot screw might have been bent.  Anyway, I put back in the original pilot screw and problem gone.  Further update, for a number of reasons I won't go into here, the machine sat from 2017 until 2020, wasn't started at all.  Needless to say I cleaned the carb, upon disassembly I found the Shindy float bowl o-ring had turned to gooey TAR.  So, in absence of anything else I put back and am currently using the original OEM float bowl o-ring, jets and parts from 1986, and it is running great.  Just needs a bit of ether if it goes much below freezing, getting old.  Starts instantly and idles smooth otherwise, see a video on how it starts and my starter motor replace tip below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1rUehPXoaY

So draw your own conclusion.  Hope you find that interesting if nothing else.  I'm currently helping another fellow with a 1993 Suzuki QuadRunner 300, he bought a Chinese carb for it as the original carb was 'lost' (??), so I have no baseline to compare with.  With my experience with my Kawasaki, and like you cleaning all 3 of yours, I'm sure I could have gotten it running perfect by simply cleaning the old carb, but what is to be will be...:o)  Am getting close to it running decent. 

Try putting back in your original OEM parts in one of your OEM carbs and try that - what have you got to lose?....:o)

Cheers Jakes!~  Bellarmine

[tjakes680]

1 hour ago, bellarmine said:

Hi Jakes, Thought I'd comment on my experience with a Shindy kit.  I have a 1986 Kawasaki Bayou 300 owned since new.  Good machine, weak points in my opinion are the carburetor and starter.  Keihin CVK-32 vaccuum slide carb very picky about dirt.  Ever so often it won't start, I drain the float bowl helps it fire up (water?), then if it persists it's carb clean time.  Probably done it a dozen times now, do it in my sleep. 

Anyway, I decided at one point about 2014 to put in a new carb kit, since it still had all the original seals and jets from near 30 years before.   Like you I bought a Shindy kit, feeling they were good quality and Japanese for a Japanese ATV.

Well, from the get go I had a high unstable idle - either racing or died.  I'm not sure, the tiny washer on the pilot screw might have been bent.  Anyway, I put back in the original pilot screw and problem gone.  Further update, for a number of reasons I won't go into here, the machine sat from 2017 until 2020, wasn't started at all.  Needless to say I cleaned the carb, upon disassembly I found the Shindy float bowl o-ring had turned to gooey TAR.  So, in absence of anything else I put back and am currently using the original OEM float bowl o-ring, jets and parts from 1986, and it is running great.  Just needs a bit of ether if it goes much below freezing, getting old.  Starts instantly and idles smooth otherwise, see a video on how it starts and my starter motor replace tip below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1rUehPXoaY

So draw your own conclusion.  Hope you find that interesting if nothing else.  I'm currently helping another fellow with a 1993 Suzuki QuadRunner 300, he bought a Chinese carb for it as the original carb was 'lost' (??), so I have no baseline to compare with.  With my experience with my Kawasaki, and like you cleaning all 3 of yours, I'm sure I could have gotten it running perfect by simply cleaning the old carb, but what is to be will be...:o)  Am getting close to it running decent. 

Try putting back in your original OEM parts in one of your OEM carbs and try that - what have you got to lose?....:o)

Cheers Jakes!~  Bellarmine

thank you so much as ur experience is pretty close to my own ever since the Shindy kit nothing at all but problems  I actually just ordered all OEM  carb parts from Partzilla and am going to rebuild the OEM with these parts . My only other experience with Shindy  I rebuilt my Kawasaki Lakotta Kehiem CVK carb 3 years ago and its been running perfectly but since I tried to rebuild the Mikunni carb VM 23  its been nothing but a headache I actually had to put a Chinese carb on  to sort things out bike is running but I want to go back with OEM as I dont trust or like the way machine runs on China carb  I actually have 3 Miikunni carbs sitting in my basement that i have to rebuild But again thanks so much for the  reply it deff helps my opinion of Shindy  kits not being correct sizes and poor quality I should have just took all jets out cleaned them and put them all back from day one 

[bellarmine]

You're welcome Jake, glad I helped!  Hpe I can get my friend's Chinese carb sorted out enough to be usable - is starting and idling nice, and driving full speed pretty good, just an occasional hesitation, and sometimes die on letting off the throttle - getting close.  If you want let me know how it goes with your true-blue OEM rebuild, might be interesting to compare........Cheers Jake!~  Bellarmine

[tjakes680]

3 hours ago, bellarmine said:

You're welcome Jake, glad I helped!  Hpe I can get my friend's Chinese carb sorted out enough to be usable - is starting and idling nice, and driving full speed pretty good, just an occasional hesitation, and sometimes die on letting off the throttle - getting close.  If you want let me know how it goes with your true-blue OEM rebuild, might be interesting to compare........Cheers Jake!~  Bellarmine

Yes I will deffintly keep you posted and put up my results 100% thanks again