To Rebuild? Or just mess with floats....

I was originally going to put this under the projects thread because this bike has so much that wants to happen to it, but since the first bits of progress need to be at the carbs, petcock and air intake, I figured I'd start with my questions in here under the Carburettor section.

I'm not new to riding but this will be my first project bike.

Here it is:

It's a 1980 KZ550 C1

When I bought it it ran well enough. The forks and suspension are super squishy, the brakes are very, very, very, very soft and it leaks gasoline. as far as I can tell, these are the biggest main problems.

Question #1 -
Two of the carburetors leak profusely from the drain tubes. I've been told different things by different people. Thing 1 is "that's simple, you need to rebuild the carbs. If you do one, do them all, that'll solve the problem." Thing 2 is "you don't need a rebuild, it's the floats not closing, just fix or replace the floats on the ones that leak and you're good to go."

Which of these sounds more accurate?

Other questions for now:
I removed the carb assembly and the air filter housing. This air box had a hose entering it at the top front as seen dangling rearward here


There was also a tube going from the airbox straight downward into the engine, into the orifice that's seen covered in foil at the right of this image.

If I were intending to replace the stock filter and housing with pods (which I am) I would wonder what these hoses and tubes are for and what to do with them in the absence of the airbox.


I've got my eye on petcock replacements and carb rebuild kits on z1 enterprises, just need to be sure I'm thinking in the right direction before I get any deeper here.

If more photos or information would be helpful please let me know. Thanks in advance for all the input, I really appreciate it. . .

Fail.

I guess my first question should be "how do I actually successfully upload the photos I mean to upload."

damn.

Good Fortune!

KZR pic limits
Width: 2400px
Height: 1200px
Size: 2048kb (2 MB)

Good Fortune!

Thanks for the tips. trying again.

photo 1. this the bike:



photo 2. This tube hanging back here. emission control? wha? what do I do with it once the carbs are back on and the pods replace the airbox?



photo 3. what to do about this orifice on the right?



I think that oughta do it. . .

And my prior questions remain as well. Thank you for your help.

GAAAAA!!!! apparently I'm having bigger problems than I thought. .

see this thread from recently
kzrider.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&...ew&catid=3&id=404081

it might be a good idea to closely look (with a magnifying glass) for very fine cracks in the vent stand pipe in the float bowl. also can support the bowl and fill it with fuel to see if it leaks

Bet your crankcase smells like gasoline :X

wargoth, right now, everything smells like gasoline.

So I've deduced that the thing I was talking about in the only photo I've managed to upload is the breather pipe from the crankcase to the airbox, would I just cap it somehow?

my next steps, I think, are to remove the float bowls and clean the float valves with a q-tip like 650ed mentioned in the thread linked above.

You could also run some Seafoam in it to help clean up any crap in there. Would put some in the gas and give her a good long run. Mine did that from time to time and it cured it. Get a good inline fuel filter too.

In my opinion you should stay with the airbox and not go to pods, but if u do then be prepared to change ur jet sizes and spend weeks and weeks making adjustments till u get it about right. What exhaust u have on it?

If u rebuild one,rebuild them all-if not bad now,soon will be.Buy a Pingel fuel valve for ur machine and forget about petcock problems.Change the oil and filter-u probably have gasoline in your oil.Keep the stock airbox and put a K and N filter in it.Pods are--uh--problematic.run a hose from ur moisture trap(the round thing on top of the block) into ur air box.use Seafoam-it is really good stuff.bj