Has to be the carbs. 82 kz750ltd with keihin carbs

Ok, when I 1st bought this bike I had a small trickle leak out of the #4 carb. Took the whole rail off, cleaned them, added a little shmootz to seal the bowls well and put'em back on. It was at this point that the starter clutch went on strike and I had to rebuild. No big. Well I have her all back together and she starts and runs. However, doesn't seem to matter how much I adjust the idle or choke, it just won't stay running. Also, when trying to rev it's VERY sluggish. I already checked spark and gap stuff and we're good. Just got back from running an errand in my car and walking past the bike I smell fuel. I look and there's a puddle! I look closer and it's coming from my airbox. So this is a bit of a new one on me. I've had flame shoot out of carbs when I was trying to call up the devil in a hotrod before but this I haven't seen. Any ideas? :blink:

dtd your sealent squeeze out and block the float from working.keeping the float needle not sealing

I used it rather sparingly. It's not likely. Now I'm leaning more toward the petcock. I went outside just a few minutes ago and the ground was soaked. about another gallon was gone coming from the airbox again. I had the petcock set to ON but when I removed the fuel line from it it kept dripping out rapidly. I removed the tank to drain the remainder into a can and when i set it to PRIME it acted intermittently.

There could be multiple problems here. First, the fuel leak-
1. If the bike has a vacuum petcock, the petcock has failed and needs to be rebuilt. It is a common problem.
2. If it is a manual petcock (no vacuum line to it) then it needs to be turned to the OFF position when the engine is off.
3. No matter which petcock is present, there is a failure of one or more needle (float) valves and/or improperly adjusted fuel level. Carefully clean each needle (float) valve seat and check fuel level using the clear tube method. There are several good tutorials in the file base on this site and about a grazillion discussion threads on the topic.
4. Are you absolutely, 100% sure that each and every tiny passage in each carb is clear of obstruction? Using aerosol carb cleaner with the little straw in each passage is a pretty good way to check for blockage. Yes, the carbs must be removed and partially disassembled to do this.
Once these things are corrected, then tuning of the engine can begin.

when i cleaned my valve seats i used a 3/16 hardwood dowel filed one end to a point put in and turned it on the float seat.i read that on here when i did a search and cleaned the seat right up.worked great.you'll get all the residue off the seat left from the float.

Calico wrote: ...fuel...puddle...coming from my airbox....

Gasoline may have also entered the crankcase. Would sniff-test the oil and examine its physical condition.
If the oil is gasoline contaminated, would drain the carbs, take whatever measures are necessary to prevent gasoline from entering the carbs, change both oil and filter, and correct whatever condition is allowing gasoline to rise up into the carb throat.

Good Fortune!

Listen to TexasKZ and Patton. I would pull the fuel line between the petcock and carbs. If it's leaking from the petcock, then repair that. I'm assuming that you have a vacuum petcock since your bike is an 82. Next you need to make sure that the float valves are sealing when the bowls are full. If you have a leaky float valve, you can have lots of problems. Once you are sure that your petcock and float valves are sealing, then do the clear tube test to make sure that you have your float bowl fuel levels set correctly. Once you have all of that stuff corrected, then make sure you don't have your crankcase oil contaminated by leaked fuel. Then if so, then please change your oil and filter. Also, you might have a look at the brass overflow tubes in your float bowls. You wouldn't be the first person to discover a crack in the overflow tube that caused these promblems.

Thanks guys. It is likely that it's a combo of both petcock and carb considering the fuel in the airbox. So instead of a boring Sunday

If the carbs at hand have overflow circuits (evidenced by hoses from bottoms of float bowls), would assure that such overflow circuits are functional and unobstructed.

An overflow circuit is supposed to provide an escape for gasoline before rising high enough to enter the carb throat.

Good Fortune!

It was both alright. Thanks everyone for all the advice!

Now that she stopped leaking, on to the next. So start and idles fine. However, put her into gear and start off there's hesitation and sputtering till I lay down on it. Even then there's a loss of power on the freeway. So I pulled the plugs. #'s 3 & 4 are sutty. The other two look fine. So I tightened the idle screws all the way in and backed'em out about 1 1/2 turns. Made it worse. Backed'em out another 1/2 turn, not as bad. But if I go any further they'll be right back where they were in the first place... Thoughts?