The thing I hate about jetting is removing and reinstalling the carb. You could either remove the airbox from the bike, or you could wrestle with the flexible air boot. Either way it is a pain in the ass. So finally I got sick of it and made a tool which holds back the mouth of the air cleaner boot from a piece of flat metal stock. Click on this link to see pics of this tool in my gallery:

http://www.dirtrider.net/gallery/br...=3&userid=65764

The narrower curved end fits snugly against the shock body between the spring coils. Then the other end is used as a lever to push back the mouth of air cleaner boot. Now use a bungee or a rope to tie that end to the back of the bike, and presto! It leaves your hands free, and gives you enough room to slide the carb in.

This forum has been really helpful to me, so I hope my trivial tool will in turn be helpful to some of you as well.

Thanks BD98, great idea. BTW how do you keep the paint on your lower frame spars looking so fresh ? My boots rub the paint right off!

I bought the bike last December and rebuilt it over the winter 'cuz the previous owner badly neglected it. I took it apart to such an extent that it took very little "extra" disassembly to dismantle it completely so I could repaint the frame. I figured it was worth the effort of squirting it with a couple of spray cans. Unfortunately it isn't holding up so well - my boots already rubbed it off in some spots. I'd like to try my hand at fiberglass and make some frame protectors and maybe a pipe guard.

Why remove the carby to rejet? undo and remove carby slid , disconnect fuel hose, loosen both clamps and rotate the carby in the boots to give you access to the bottom of the carby.

I don't see how you could remove the slide in the mounted position. Ain't enuff room on my bike

Don't remove the slide. Just unscrew the top of the carb, loosen the boots on either end and rotate the carb after you take off the fuel line. You need to replace the four screws that hold on the bowl of the carb with hex head ones from your favorite hardware store if you are going to remove the bowl more than once. If you are going to be changing the pilot, you will need that very short screwdriver and it helps to get a little more room by taking off the case chain guard. If you plan to do this very much, it is also a good idea to replace stock clamps on the inlet and outlet of the carb with automotive screw type. Cheers John

just remove the drain plug and use a 6mm 1/4 drive socket

Thanks, John. I think I understand what you mean: once the top is unscrewed, the throttle cable+spring will give enough leeway to clear the frame and rotate the carb. I think I tried that once, but still found space insufficient even to unscrew the carb top. It's a tight fit between carb top and frame, so maybe some bikes have more room than others due to manufacturing tolerances and assembly variations? But I'll give it another try.

BTW, once the carb is rotated, do you have enough room to remove the slide? Or do you still have to remove the carb if you want to mess with the needle?

That only gives you access to main jet. BTW, what do you use to capture fuel from the drain plug? Even my smallest funnel would not fit in there, and I hate spilling fuel.

You can cut an old water bottle to fit under the drain plug and put a piece of hose on the end to drain into the weed eater, or you can burn the fuel out before you stop the bike by shutting off the petcock (not my prefered method since this is surely going to include some walking back to the garage).
On my son's '99 220, I can rotate the carb to remove the bowl completely, but on my '95 200 the space didn't allow this. I don't know if it's manufacturing tolerances, or the diferences in both carbs?