gs 550e runs rough

[BMW325/Cobra]

Hey, I was given a gs550e and have begun to work on it. The poblems are, when I start it, it kind of hangs up pretty high. When I rev it, it hangs up for a little then will drop back down some. When I rev it, it goes up but then seems to just kind of stops and doesn't want to go. I was told that you can play with the choke and it will sometimes run fine.
Now, what I've done, I did pull apart all carbs and cleaned them well. All jets looked fine.
Two Ideas I had were the throttle valve springs, If these don't have enough tension, could that cause some hanging of the throttle. The other was if the coils might be bad. Any insight or other ideas would be appreciatted

[NICK!]

Sounds like you might have an air leak or the carb sync might be way out. Since you claim if you play with the choke it runs better I'd check for an air leak first. Take some nonflammable brake cleaner or somthing similar that won't make a mess and with the bike idleing spray around the intake boots one at a time and see if the idle drops or if the engine even dies. You didn't tell us what year 550 you have, please give us some more info.

[motorcyclemodeller]

Could also be as simple as the throttle cable tension is too tight or the cable needs to be lubricated, and/or the throttle sleeve around the handlebar needs to be greased. Finally improper throttle and choke cable routing.

Hope this helps,

\\/ Andre N. Bouchere\\/

[BMW325/Cobra]

More info and new problem

Its a 79 gs550e. Today I started it up to try the spray, and it sat reving pretty high around 5k. I made the throttle cable lose enough that there was no tension on it. the only way I was able to get it to slow down was pull off the filter and starve the engine of gas, but as soon as i put it back on it went right back up. while it was on, I did us wd40 around all boots on both sides of the carbs and nothing happened.
Any ideas?

[Redman]

You say you sprayed WD40 on "both sides of the carbs". Try it by spraying where the rubber boots go up against the cyclinder head, that is where the o-rings are that you are trying to test.

[BMW325/Cobra]

more info

sorry, wasn't very specific. I did spray the rubber to metal connection and the metal to the heads. Nothing. Im thinking I might try it again, but still not sure what to do about the high reving

[NICK!]

OK, you've got rocker top carbs then. Since you've checked for air leaks and you've put enough slop in the cables to make sure thats not holding them open I would next look to make sure that the cable reel is indeed sitting on the idle speed adjustment screw. If it isn't I would suspect that someone before you has the carb sync all screwed up, if the sync adjustment screws are all screwed in (or out, I don't remember which does this) too far this can take the cable reel off of the idle speed adjustment screw and created a situation like you have. Another possibility is that the sync is so far out of adjustment cylinder to cylinder that its acting this way. Third, look to see if the rocker caps have their gaskets in place, that can make the bike run funny if the gaskets aren't there or if one or two are missing but I doubt the effect would be as great as you are experiencing. First thing is to get the bike stripped down and get in there with a flashlight and see if the reel is sitting on the idle speed adjustment screw or not. After that your going to need sync styx to check further. Actually, I'm curious about what you did during the carb clean, can you describe in detail?