floats??

[Anonymous]

hello all,
I have a 1981 GS550e and just recently have a problem with fuel flowing through the breather hoses above the airbox and out the back of the carbies into the airbox. I adjusted all the floats to the mesurements in the service manual and it worked for about 2 weeks, but now the problem is back. I cant just keep adjusting the float levels as soon there will be nothing to adjust. Does anyone have any suggestions?? please

Dominic

[Anonymous]

Do you have overflow tubes on the bottom of the carbs. If so, I would have expected surplus fuel to come out here. However, if the floatbowls are overfull then clean (or replace) the float valve assembly. This is the small valve that the float-pivot sits against and closes when enough fuel is in the bowl. These are very cheap new but they probably only need cleaning. Do you use a fuel filter. You might be getting dirt from the tank into the carbs causing the float valve not to seat properly, this is why you cured it for a few weeks. Install a fuel filter while you are at it.

[Anonymous]

Did you check that the needle valves and their seats were not damaged or worn or just dirty? Float level won't matter if a good seal at the needle valve doesn't exist.
As a side note, it sounds like your petcock may be set to Prime, which won't cause the leak but will allow the leak to go on until the tank emptys.
I recently had about a gallon of gas leak into my crankcase because of this.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to Pjackson and TheMadHatter. Turns out the seats are worn so they will be replaced soon. The overflow tubes run over the top of the original air box. The motor is mounted in a full dune-buggy and not in the original bike as I found the worn out bike as a good buy for my project. The motor ran no worries untill I had this problem, but i'm slowly learning the ins and outs of the motor. I will install a fuel filter immediately. Thanks again for all your help. Cheers

Dominic