Where do we go now?

For those that are going to read through this and help me out…may the KZ Gods smile on you forever.

Here is the situation. I posted a thread about a month ago in reference to gas pooling on the ground after I would park my bike(1980 KZ650F). I was advised that my petcock needed to be rebuilt and if that didn’t fix it than I should take apart the float assemblies and clean and replace the parts there. I started with this petcock and that seemed to take care of the pooling while the bike was off, then the problem became gas out of the relief tubes while the bike was on at a stop after the throttle was pumped a couple of times. So I took the carbs off the bike cleaned the float bowl and floats, replaced the float needles and float bowl gaskets.

Since the carbs were off the bike I decided to put the new pod filters I had bought on the bike and go for a little more air while I was at it. Well the bike ran like sh** and with the help of a friend found that I had huge vacuum leaks all over the place. So we fixed that problem and sync’d the carbs up which seemed to fix all the problems I had and for about a day the bike ran like it never had before.

Which brings me to today and why I have written this book. MY BIKE STILL LEAKS GAS AT EVERY STOP!!! Not only is this driving my mileage right into the ground but it is leaking right under my rear tire which if kinda freaking me out. What should I be looking at? What am I missing here? I know there has to be a simple or at least a solution but with my limited knowledge of motorcycle engines and how they work I am at a loss. Please help if you can, I am really good mechanically but not with troubleshooting and don’t want to have to pay a mechanic hundreds of $$ for something I can probably do over the weekend.

Thanks all for the assistance…

Check float level?:blink:

Do the carbs have overflow tubes? If so inspect them very carefully for cracks.

The first step to trouble shooting this problem would be to tell us what type motorcycle we are talking about and what type carburetors. In fact, go into your profile and edit your signature and put your bike year/model and your location in your signature. What if you lived down the road from me and I could help? I am pretty good at troubleshooting and it sounds like your bike is close to being right.

I have had this problem before. I took the fuel filter off and hooked my carbs straight to the fuel tank. I dont know if my floats arnt strong enough to stop the fuel flow or what ever, but when I put the fuel filter back on it stoped leaking out at every stop or when I leaned it over.

I will start there with the float adjustment, in my Clymer book it talks about a special tool. Is there a way to make this at home or am I stuck getting it from Kawasaki? I am also going to get a filter in the line because I am going straight from the tank to the carbs.

The carbs are the standard Mikuni. That's about all I know of them.

I'll tell my strange but true story. A couple years ago I had to replace the fuel line on my old KZ650 I ride every day. Soon after that I was turning a corner and felt like oil under the tire. Stop and find gas pouring out of the #4 carb overflow hose. I go home remove the carbs expecting crap to be in the #4 needle/seat. All looked good so I just replace the needle/seat. No improvement at all, gas flowing out of #4. Sometimes it would seem OK but once the engine was running gas would come out. Running out of ideas I tried to do a fuel level test with a homemade guage, which is a joke, but could never seem to get #3 carb level to act right so I remove #3 needle/seat and find a huge fuzzball in there virtually blocking fuel to #3. Remove fuzz from #3, problem with overflowing #4 is fixed. I don't understand it and never will.

To expand on mic57's comment, there was a post not so long ago describing how the metal overflow tubes inside the carb bowl had a hairline crack, causing the leak. Not the rubber tube outside the carb. The preferred solution as I recall was to slip a sleeve tightly over the tube.

Z1Boise wrote:

To expand on mic57's comment, there was a post not so long ago describing how the metal overflow tubes inside the carb bowl had a hairline crack, causing the leak. Not the rubber tube outside the carb. The preferred solution as I recall was to slip a sleeve tightly over the tube.

Oil resistant heat shrink works good for that.

Front I would get the fuel filter in before taking your carbs apart.