So I rode about 50 miles to my gf's place last night and when I woke up this morning I noticed some fuel dripping from the bottom of the carb, I am talking very very slowly, as in it may have dripped a few drops the whole night/morning. I rode it the 50 miles home and it runs great. Obviously thought, I don't want fuel leaking from my carbs. It only appears to be on the left float bowl(side stand side), it doesn't appear to be leaking into the air fliter, and the right carb is clean. at first I thought it was my crank case breather dripping so I installed a fuel filter instead of the thick peice of towel that was there....but that didn't fix the problem.

Here is my set-up if it matters....2001 GS, lunchbox, jetted 22.5, 65, 147.5, 3 turns, no washers.


What could my problem be and how do I tackle it. I will be doing the valves tomorrow so if I can knock this out at the same time that would be great....bike has 3800 miles on it and I am the second owner, I did the jetting and all that stuff.

Have you checked your float heights?

http://www.bbburma.net/FloatHeight.htm

How are they? Maybe your left float is too high?

01 + bikes dont have floats that get out of correct height that easily. I think a bad O ring or a bad gasket, ot a loose gasket or somehting else.
Cool.
Buddha.

I'm having very similar troubles! I just put in a lunchbox and rejetted, the right carb is the one leaking for me though. I checked the float height and both are fine. It looks as if something on the top of the carb is leaking down. Any ideas on what I should check?

OK guys, the 01+ floats have tangs thnat are channel shaped. Not the straight lip type in the 89-00. As a result they dont bend with age/use.
However they still have O rings and springs and rubber stoppers.
In an 01+ bike, high floats usually would likely be one of those, or a stuck open float or a piece of junk in the opening preventing the rubber from sealing up around it.
I would split em open and check, of course do a U tube check first and make sure it is high ...
Cool.
Buddha.

Oh, sorry, I guess I forgot to mention that mine is a '99

make sure to check the carb bowl drain screws to be sure that they are tight.

+1 for da budda...i put my money on something keeping the float needle from seating or a tired bowl gasket.

you never mentioned where the fuel is dripping from, that would help us help you

99 - high float is #1.
Maybe the float gasket is bad too.
Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: jeremy_nash on August 23, 2009, 04:12:08 PM
make sure to check the carb bowl drain screws to be sure that they are tight.

Checked, its good.

Quote from: jeremy_nash on August 23, 2009, 04:27:09 PM
you never mentioned where the fuel is dripping from, that would help us help you

I would tell you if I knew, but the whole bottom half of the carb is getting a dirty tinge to it and as said in the OP its a very slow leak so you can't actually see anything drip, just the aftermath and the formed drops at the bottom of the carb. I meant to take some pictures this last weekend but didn't get around to it

Any ideas why it would be getting that dirty brown-ish tinge to it? When I let out gas from the bowl valves its colorless, but as it seeps out it seems to be picking something up because it is consistently that color. Maybe that might offer some clues to its origins 

both my carbs have the orange almost a drip there, but I have never seen any on my engine though

Okay, so this weekend I pulled the carbs and cleaned them, reset all the mixture screws and put it back on. The bike runs better now, before it was struggling mid-high range RPM but thats fixed. The carbs are still leaking though, but now it doesn't have the orange tinge to it.