HELP bike keeps dying on longer rides

It's the light at then end of the tunnel.........!

 

One thing I've learned about bikes is nothing is as it seems at first and the Yamaha XJ is no exception. I've been around bikes all my life having been on 2-wheels before kindergarten (1975 on a Rupp) and the one thing I've learned is to think outside the box, the service manual is only food for thought. When I picked up my SECA last February it was in a number of milk jug crates and the first thing I bought for this mess was the factory service manual. Lots of pretty diagrams and exploded views but nothing on the church of clean, that one I had to learn on my own the hard way. Every nut & bolt was turned by my hand, every spade connector extracted from its shell and scrubbed with 400 grit wet & dry. I've had Honda Scramblers, a KDX-175 enduro, a KX1000 with flat cams and the big-boy CBx Sport and while they're all Asian made most everything was unique about each of them and you start the learning curve all over again adapting to the brand on the tank. The smallest of details are so easy to overlook in the big picture, missing the little assist wire on the end of the needle is one I've done a few times myself.

Over the past 8000-some miles this year I've split half a dozen carb boots, mashed the bowl gaskets to the point of useless and ended up making my own from gasket material. Had numerous hung floats from trash getting past the chinesium fuel filters and getting stuck between the needle & seat and an enrichment needle rack finger getting bent upwards holding the needle off the seat and driving me nuts trying to balance the carbs. In short it's been an adventure. What I got in return was turn-key reliability with a 1/4 turn of the enrichment lever. It spanks 1200 Harley Sportsters and rides quite well. The only issue I had that got me worried was a partial failure of the TCI module and that was solved with new capacitors and resoldering. I trust this bike to go anywhere without a worry or large collection of spare parts, just light bulbs and a tire repair kit but it didn't come easy and I never once thought about trading up to something else and I'd do it all over again just for the fun of it.

 

Now, I haven’t checked the fuel levels, the mechanic I took it to said he had done that and honestly I didn’t notice it being an issue when I was able to ride it during the whole petcock and wrong jet fiasco that the mechanic did. I had done it myself with the pvc pipe/ clear tube but since I have the carbs off I might as well be triple sure right? Haha

 

Haha, yes you'd better to that! Correct fuel levels are an important part of carb "tuning".

 

Ok glad I checked the levels!
1st carb: 3mm
2nd carb: 7mm
3rd carb: 5mm
4th carb: 4mm

I believe xj550 maxim is 2mm +/- 1mm

 

How do most people measure the fuel of the middle two? I used the bottom part of where the air intake opening is. It was the same distance on the side of carb one and the land marked just mentioned. Figured I could extrapolate that to the middle two

 

If your rack is mounted on a jig and leveled left to right and front to back, you could probably check the level of the center two against the outside two bodies. If in a jig and leveled, why couldn't you just check levels against their own bodies?

 

Well I was under the impression to do it in the middle of the bowl, but like you said if it is level then the corners should be fine. Thanks for the simple logic haha