Possible carb issues...

Hey, i'm new to this site as well as bikes. Grew up around cars as we built drag cars but just got my first bike. I bought an 81' xj650 maxim for $450. 450, a bottle of starting fluid, and 4 new plugs and she fired right up after sitting for over a year. Needs a LOT of little odds and ends cosmetic work, but well worth the time and money. However, when starting it (and it takes a few tries) with full choke on, it will idle around 1100 but after about 10 minutes i still can't let off the choke or it will die out. also with half choke, (I can only take it back to half choke or it will die out if i take it completely off) i ease on the throttle and it is taking
WAY too long for it to come back to idle- at least 5-10 seconds. Any help would be great guys. thanks!

 

You need to get those carbs off for a thorough clean & bench sync', clean out the fuel tank & filters before refitting the carbs & vac' sync'.
Rick Co Matic has posted some great stuff on cleaning & syncing carbs.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. i'll definately need a new tank as the the one that is on there now isn't worth saving, but I'm building on a tight budget, and I can't find a good tank at a fair price ANYWHERE. I'll be tackling the carbs this weekend.

 

When you do the Carbs ... be sure to:

Clean-out and assure that the Fuel Metering Ports at the bottom of the Fuel Bowl are clean and free-flowing.

After removing the cover, spring and diaphragm assembly from the top and the Main Fuel Jet and washer from the bottom ... Press-Out the Brass Tube abovoe the Main Jet.
Thoroughly clean.

Blow Carb Cleaner and Air through the passages.

Scrub ... using ScotchBrite Pad (Gray) ... the Bores for the Diaphragm Pistons.
Remove Oxidation and Alumina-oxidation surface buildup.
Polish the Bores.

 

thanks, Rick. good advice. any help is well appreciated.

 

okay... so got the carbs off, torn down, and in four seperate containers, and what I found was pretty rough. plastic ring at the center of the diaphrams were cracked on a couple... main jets stopped slap up along with almost every one of the other jets. anyway, got them all apart and in containers now, soaking in simple green, so tomorrow when I wash them off, I can see what I can salvage? I did run into some issues with removing some of the jets on the top side on a couple. needless to say they're in there, and I lost that fight. hopefully i can take a small torch tip cleaner and get some of the remaining gunk out of there. any tips are appreciated. let me know what else i need to check. thanks guys.