While removing the air cleaner housing cover I found an odd screw holding it on. Seems a previous maintainer had come up short and improvised.
RHS of the carbs with air cleaner removed.
Notice the fill tank is still in place.
And the LHS of the carbs.
I soon decided to remove the fuel tank to ease removal of the carbs.
BE CAREFUL
Besides the obvious wires to disconnect on top of the fuel tank, there is this sensor on the LHS.
It connects to the red plug on left and the wire follows my drawn line (approx).
For location reference, notice the positive battery terminal in the lower right.
The frame cross member just below center in this photo provides a great leverage point from prying out the carbs.
Others have used a broomstick.
I used this.
And, viola!
With good leverage, I had minimal difficulty getting the carbs loose.
More of a problem was getting that air line (top center) off the carbs.
Look at all the grime!
And...what's that in laying in there?
It's the missing screw from the air cleaner housing cover.
Getting to the timing belt requires removing the front head covers from each side.
On this RHS one, I've circled my hex wrench in one bolt head.
I couldn't turn my T-handle hex wrench, so I removed the bolt (circled) for that body panel and was able to flex the panel outward enough to loosen/remove the bolt.
Removing the timing hole cover aids in removal of the timing belt cover.
It's off here exposing the drive pulley nut.
I employed a slightly different method for wriggling the timing belt cover out.
I manually lifted it a bit until the left corner in this photo (two lines drawn) was resting on the clutch cover.
Most of my leverage came from the large screwdriver against the frame (upper right of photo).
Minimal prying was done at the lowest point pictured.