I was in a similar situation with all kinds of carburation problems till I treated my tank INSIDE with POR-15. Search the forum and the Wiki. All your efforts to clean, tweak and sync the carbs, replace the petcock, hoses, etc. etc. will go down the drain quickly if you have a rusty/gunky tank.

IMHO.

Sounds like I have quite a bit of work ahead of me. Thats okay though I guess, I need to be less tempted to ride it and have a better excuse to tear it down some more. Thanks alot for the help everyone.

You clowns ... (ohgood and werase) ... stop throwing me under the bus. I'll post if I wanna do work.
Cool.
Buddha.

You mentioned a fuel filter, there could be a problem with it not flowing enough. You could try disconnecting the fuel line from the carbs and let all the fuel in the tank drain into a clean gas can. make sure it runs thorough all the fuel line, filters, whatever else is in the line between the tank and the carb.

Watch it drain, see if it slows down, or just flows slow the entire time. When the fuel stops flowing with the petcock in the on position, switch to reserve and finish draining the tank.

Your filter could be obstructing flow enough that you can't keep the carbs full.  How much fuel is in the tank, the more in it, the more pressure there will be to help fuel flow.

Don't get discouraged, there's no magic to it. Once you conquer this, and you will, you will have a great sense of satisfaction.

Well I just got done working on my GS. I replaced all the fuel lines, the fuel filter, the upper vent hose, the gas tank vent hose, and put the new gas tank cushion on. It runs, but at first it ran very poor. I'd twist the throttle and get almost nothing. I tightened down the battery terminals and that went away. It runs good now, maybe even better than before. For how long? I don't know, but for it's running again and that's good enough for me. I did however seem to shake the carburators around a bit when removing my air filter box to connect the lower fuel line to the carb, I don't know if this helped by knocking around any junk in the bowls, but I'll find out I guess if anything settles in the bottom again.

Make use of the carb drains - remove any junk that's collected.

Ah yes I should have already thought to do that, I couldnt find where it is on the wiki or searching on here. Can anyone explain to me where it is exactly? Thanks.

Open the screw (the horizontal one with the phillips/slot head, rightmost in this picture), the gook (and eventually gasoline) comes out the spigot. Looks the same only mirrored on the opposite side. Takes, oh, 15 seconds each, tops.

The lowest point on each carburetor is a nipple, next to each one is a screw. The screw points to the side of the bike. Open the screw and gas comes out of the nipple.

Attach a 1/8" line to the nipple, open the screw and you can drain the fuel from the bowl. If there's crap in there, hopefully it'll come out too.

While you're at it hold the line up next to the bowl and you can see where the fuel level is. Should be even with the bowl gasket.

So with the 1/8 line attached to the nipple, hold it up next to the bowl, and the float will be at correct height if the fuel in the line reaches the bowl gasket?

That is correct.

Thats a pretty neat trick. Ill be doing that today.

No one has mentioned the petcock on the bottom of the tank. It could be not turned on correctly, its easy to not turnit quite right and have fuel flow, but not enough. Also could be blocked with gunk. It has a filter, needs to be pulled out of the tank to check it. As someone else said, take the fuel lines off the carbs and check theres enough flow.

Quote from: SecondsFromTheFall on August 30, 2008, 07:30:08 PM
So with the 1/8 line attached to the nipple, hold it up next to the bowl, and the float will be at correct height if the fuel in the line reaches the bowl gasket?

Connect the hose open the drain screw and put the petcock in prime.
Yea all the junk in the bottom should be out first.
Cool.
Buddha.

PUt it in prime first? Damn well I just did it with the valve off, but nothing but clear gas came out anyways. Should I give it another go? By the way my fuel valve doesnt have a prime. It only has on/off/reserve. Should I just turn it to on? as for the tank mounted petcock, I'm about 99.9% sure its all the way on. Also the fittings came out of the bottom, and when I looked in them they looked clean with no signs of gunk. I didnt know the tank mounted valve has a filter in it. I guess Ill replace that too.

If nothing but clear gas comes out then you can't do much more without opening the carbs. If you drain the bowls like you did with the petcock off then you can only drain what is in the bowls. If you turn the petcock on then the bowls will continue to fill.

Be sure that the petcock is on when you use the 1/8" tube for checking the float/fuel level. 

The "filter" in the tank mounted valve is really just a screen, you can take it out and clean it. It's part of the fuel valve.

Quote from: DoD#i on August 29, 2008, 07:12:20 PM

As for the battery, charge it and then take it to an auto parts store for a load test, which will let you know for sure that it is good, or is not good - then you can look there, or look elsewhere.

I believe that buddha charges something like $45 plus shipping to work your carbs over, and is probably the best bet if you don't do them yourself.

you can do a load test yourself at home with only a voltmeter. disconnect the plug wires or clamp off a fuel line or something so it doesn't start. connect a voltmeter to the battery. crank over the bike watching the voltmeter. if it doesn't drop below 9.6 on a fully charged battery it's good. if it doesn't pass it could be the starter drawing too much amps from internal resistance or a seized motor (not the case here).

Thanks guys, Ill probably do that tommorow. I just bought a new bed with my girl today, and after all the runnning around I had to do on top of waking up WAY to early, that queen size is calling my name more than my GS.