1980 GS550 work in progress

[Celilo]

At the end of May I bought this bike and spent a good week cleaning it up.

It ran as far as my parking spot at my apartment and there it has sat, more or less.
The roughly 30-mile ride went well, though it had a noticeable "pulse" where it felt as though the RPMs were very slightly rising and falling.
The bike has 19xxx miles on it and tags are dated '05. So it has sat for a while, and the carbs reflected some varnish as well as a lot of rust in the petcock.

The first thing I did was remove the carbs and have them taken apart and cleaned out/blown out. I let someone else take the reigns on this.
Things they didn't do: Remove the needle and slide, diaphragm, or the air jet that faces the airbox. The carbs were not removed from the gang plate. The floats were not adjusted/touched.
I am uncertain as to how the carbs were soaked if those things were not removed, or if air blown through would have any useful effect.
The other jets were removed and soaked.
The gaskets and various o-rings were replaced.

I replaced the cracked intake boots, the petcock, the air filter, changed the oil and replaced the filter with a KN-133, checked the compression (120 dry), and replaced the spark plugs while making sure that they all spark blue (as best I can confirm).

Since then I have noticed a small oozing of oil that comes out from around the chrome covers at the top of the engine on the left side (valve cover gasket), my OIL light came on,
have been unable to get the bike to idle appropriately (1/2 or more choke required & dies at 2k or less without it), and have not seen the 1st cylinder fire correctly (if at all). While the other plugs tend to have a tiny bit of wetness to them, the 1st plug is always dry.

I am leaning toward the 1st cylinder not getting fuel. The carbs are currently off so that I can check it out and possibly do a rebuild.

Questions:
1. What contributes to the proper functioning of the fuel jets?
2. What is anyone else's take on my situation? -- I will supply more information if I know it.

This is my first mechanical endeavor. So, let me have it.

 

[tom203]

Sadly, your carbs must be fully disassembled and dipped to do the job properly or you will experience problems like you are. You don't need rebuild kits, but you need new o-rings (cycleorings.com). It's time consuming, but this ethanol fuel is bad stuff on little passages.Go here and do some reading about this....

http://zeus.mtsac.edu/~cliff/storage/gs/Mikuni_BS-CV_Carburetor_Rebuild_Tutorial.pdf

 

[Celilo]

I went ahead and ordered the kit of O-rings, thank you for the link.

I will do a strip of the carbs and soak them myself, then see where it leaves me. I might end up opting for the boiling method for my situation.
If I took the screw specs on that PDF to a hardware store, would I more or less be able to acquire most if not all of them? The ones on these carbs are stripped to hell and back.

After speaking with a friend, I am less concerned about the oil light... it is just odd that it was never on before I changed the oil. The oil that came out was black as tar and the case was overfilled, so I have no idea if that could affect its operation. He basically said that it'll turn off when pressure is sensed, and I do recall it flickering off when it tries to start. (The real trouble being if it turns on when the engine is running.)

Thanks for the input.

 

[tom203]

That o-ring guy sells replacement screw kits, I believe. Lots of ebay sellers too.
that old thick oil might have gunked up your oil sender, maybe some running with clean oil will get it to behave.