TOPIC:

Finally got a second crack at trying to get KZombie to fire-up tonight and stwange things were afoot.

First a sanity check for me, since all of my manuals do not show the vacuum ports connected to these VM24SS carbs and any exploded views I found searching here (over an hour now), still leave me wondering if perhaps my vacuum lines are wrong?
So here's the carbs in question, in situ:





Do I have my vacuum lines connected properly?
Pic one above, RED cap on carb 2, is plugging one port which I thought was connected to the emissions reed valve setup. Black hose below it routes to a "T" connector which is connected to carb 4 seen in Picture two. From the T connector the vacuum line is routed to the petcock although the hose is currently plugged without the tank on at the moment.

I connected the fuel line (seen in the second picture) to a bottle of fuel for test run. When I filled the bottle, every carb gushed gasoline out of the over-flow tubes and down to the garage floor at the center stand (ie: the over flow tubes are all routed to behind the engine, between the center stand and swing arm.
This never happened on Sunday when I tried to start the engine. I had exactly the same setup without any drama (or engine start).

In the searching tonight I found [ Nessim's Notes on these carbs problems ] about the floats jamming up and the jets clogging easily.
I'm just puzzled because none of this happened on Sunday and the bike has only sat in the garage since then until tonight's attempt.

Additionally, as I was trying to start the engine, I noticed gasoline was dripping from the carb mounts - all of them -

So basically, I'm assuming I was flooding the engine as it tried to start. My thought was - OK, this is obviously too rich... and then shut off the choke and went WOT and rolled on the starter. Amazingly, the engine behaved like it was going to start for about 2 seconds until eventually my battery dropped below 10vdc.

I replaced my plugs tonight because I discovered I made the blunder of installing BR7ES plugs before and read recently that was a no no. I confirmed spark at all four B7ES plugs and with the ignition cover off, I could clearly see the points sparking during rotation. I also confirmed the points for 1 and 4 had the black wire and points for 2 and 3 had the green wire (so points to coils is wired correctly - I thought maybe this was the problem on Sunday).

I am going to pull the carbs AGAIN! argh! and completely dismantle them to see why they all poured fuel out the over-flow tubes (this happened all night. I dried up the floor and next attempt to start, more fuel on the floor). So the bowls are obviously full and based upon gas dripping from all four of the carb mounts, I'm flooding the engine; right?

Am I missing anything else? I need the sanity check here. Thanks in advance for any wisdom y'all can impart.

The red cap is vacuum. The T's are vents.
Steve

So the red cap should be routed by itself to the petcock and the ports on carb 2 and 4 should be blocked? Ack

The red one goes to the petcock. The vents go above the air box. The ports on the carb holders control the emissions or capped off.
Steve

First thing you need to do is differentiate the vent tubes from the vacuum tube. I'm not an expert on those particular carbs but it looks like the red cap is over your vacuum port line. Are there any other vacuum ports on those carbs? If not, you need to T that line and run one end to the petcock and the other to your reed valve setup.

The other lines that you seem to have joined together in a T look like vents. Those should not be plugged into your petcock since there will be no vacuum signal. I think these vents should be open to the air or maybe connected to your airbox. Not sure.

They are routed up to the air box so critters won't get in. They MUST be open to the atmosphere.
Steve

Thanks gents!
In the original configuration this bike had the emissions setup with the big tube from air box to reed valves etc but that was all hanging off the side, disconnected and the reed valves had been taken so basically all that jumble of vacuum was unknown to me, I was just going on a few forum descriptions, exploded views and assumption.

So the two vent ports (carb 2 and 4) should route to the air box. The only place to connect that tube on the air box would be at the bottom center of the air filter, there's a nipple but I thought that was a drain. I plugged the big hole from the emissions tube already.

Do you think this would prevent the carbs from working (the plugged vent tube)?
I'm kinda' happy to learn this because it gives me hope that the engine might just start and run, although I still have to remove the carbs to figure out why they're gushing gas outta the overflow tubes. I'm guessing stuck float valves since it didn't do this first time I tried.

They don't connect to anything. Just open. I suspect with the blocked off the carbs might be flooding due to the siphon effect.
Steve

The vents need to be open otherwise the floatbowl's won't be able to fill properly.

If you have fuel gushing out that means you are either trying to put fuel in via the vents (unlikely) or the float needles are not sealing.

I try'd running the 2 vac lines behind the motor and down under the pan (like the battery overflow) and got like a vacuum effect where it was starving for gas or surging..... so I just have left mine open but like Steve says maybe I'll route lines up by the filter box and leave em open up there outta the air flow.

I'm going to try starting it tonight with the vents open to atmosphere & see what happens. Hopefully the fuel floats won't be stuck in some weird vacuum causing them not to shutoff their valves. I just find it odd that every carb did this last night after behaving normally last try. What are the odds that every carb shutoff got mystery gunk in them since 4 days prior with no use?
Fingers crossed...

Fuel filters?
Steve