Carb Problem on a 550

[Anonymous]

I recieved a non running 1981 GS550 last week. The bike had sat for at least a year.First order of buisness was to rebuild the carbs. I received kits that contained everything except the throttle slider components. The bottoms of the carbs were very nasty and one air jet had to be tapped out. I disasembled the carbs and soaked them in a bucket of carb cleaner. After I used some fine wire to open up the passage ways in all the carbs. I blew everything out and reinstalled all the components. The bike wound not crank up after reinstalling the carbs. After some tinkering I removed the carbs and rechecked the passage ways. Everything seemed fine. This time when I reinstalled I noticed the boots werent sealing so after some fiddling I got them to seal. Now when I tried the bike fired right up and seamed to idle really well. Then I noticed both exhaust pipes were smoking and the bike died. I removed the plugs and noticed they were fouled from excess fuel. I cleaned the plugs and started the bike up again. This time I laid into the throttle and got the rpms up to about 4500 and kept it there. After bout 10 seconds the smoke was really starting to poor out and I noticed fuel pouring out of the drain from the air box. Again the plugs were fouled from all the fuel. I pulled the carbs back apart and noticed the the rubber plugs were allowing fuel to get sucked up into the air jets from the float bowls. I replaced the plugs and installed fresh spark plugs. This time when I started the bike it fired right up and idled really nice for a few seconds. I revved the bike up and got the smoke again and a few drops of fuel outta the air box. The bike fouled the new plugs in a matter of 40 seconds. Aside from the air jet plugs in the bowls still leaking what else would cause this thing to run way way rich like this. Im getting fuel on the air box side of the carbs as well. Not as much as before. Also the moving the choke seems to have no effect on the bike. If the floats were set too high would this cause this problem as well? Im not getting any fuel outta the over flow tubes.
Sorry for such a long post but I'm starting to get a bit frustrated. The air/fuel mix adjustment screws are still factory sealed. Could that be in some way causing these symptoms?

[10yeareer]

If you soaked your carbs without removing the mixture screws, you melted the little o-ring on them. I would remove the mixture screws and repace the o-ring. That being said, that is not your major problem. I would double check the float valves to make sure they are working correctly. Than I would measure the float heigth.

Save youself the hassle of installing the carbs and finding out you have float problems by hooking the carbs up to your tank. Put the petcock on prime, fill them up and let them sit and make sure they don't leak. If your leak is fixed then install them.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply... Ive taken the carbs back off and am going to check the float levels and see if they are sealing properly....

[Anonymous]

You didn't rebuild the carbs if you didn't take the air mixture screws out. I would fully disassamble the carbs, soak them in carb cleaner, replace all the o-rings, etc.

Do it right the first time rather than having to do it half-way several times.

[Anonymous]

Took the carbs back to work yesterday and went thru everything....
The chokes were fine, the air screws and o-rings were replaced.
The float need and seats were working like they should be but the float heights are incorrect. I need to know the measuring point for the bottom of the float. Is is the bottom of the curved portion of the float or the flat spot of the float were it is molded to the metal bracket that has the tab on it. Im not sure were to measure.

[Anonymous]

Measured from the bottom of the curved portion according to my factory service manual for my 850 (CV carbs).

[Anonymous]

Whelp the good news first..... I got the bike running today. I actually drove it for about 40 minutes today. Carbs seem to be working well. I set the floats at 23mm. Now the bad....

Seems my intake boots are leaking. I fiddled with it and fiddled with it and just cant seem to get them to seal up. Is there a good online resource that I can goto to purchase a set? While im at it ill get the intake o-rings as well....

Thanks for the help. It was nice to hear the bike run for the first time in ages.....

[Anonymous]

I've heard of sealing the intake boots with silicon.

I wanted to replace my o-rings during a recent carb rebuild, but I couldn't get the bolts out. Not enough clearance for my impact driver; some have gotten enough room by removing the air box.

Best of luck.

[Anonymous]

hmm so If I had to purchase both the intake boots and o-rings, were would be a good place to look???

[debby]

Try ronayers.com. I've ordered parts from them. Better prices than your local dealer or bikebandit.com. Took about two weeks to get my order. You'll need the suzuki p/n to order off their site, but there's another parts site (I forget who) where you can look that up. Or buy a parts list cd...

Debby

[Anonymous]

Ronayres has the best prices by far but don't have microfishe for our old bikes. Bikebandit did have the fishe for my 1980 but looks like they caught on and changed to custom with only their own part numbers on it. Suzuki pulls the stunt of changing the part number for the same part in a different year so you can end up paying twice the price for the same part in a different year.
I got the intake boots and the air box boots (at Ronayres) for my bike before Bikebandit changed their microfishe. The air box / filter / and boots can cause you a lot of grief on these bikes, just like the intake manifold boots and O-rings. Sometimes a guy advertises parts manual CDs on EBAY.

[Anonymous]

Just remembered, once phoned my order into ronayres and the sales clerk looked up the parts for my Suzukis. Number must be on the web site. As I recall their shipping is very slow...

[first timer]

you can get your part numbers here.

https://www.powersportspro.com/

-ryan