'82 XJ550 Carb question - need some serious help!

Help!

Last year I rebuilt the bike from frame up. I spent over $200 in parts rebuilding the carbs alone. After bench syncing, balancing, and then color tuning the carbs the bike ran pretty good, but it wasn't quite right. When stopping at a light the idle would be high, but if I manually pushed down on the adjustment screw it would go to a normal idle.

Then, towards the end of last season I noticed that one of the carbs was leaking. When I pulled them last week I found that two of the floats were off, and I also noticed that one of the boots to the air box wasn't sealing properly.

The carbs are back on, and the boots are all sealed properly but I'm having some trouble getting it to run. I figured that with the one boot not sealed right I needed to re-adjust the mixture. I now have each mixture screw at 2 3/4 turns. It will now run but only with the choke on full.

After re-reading "In the Church of Clean", I noticed a section on the butterfly valves. I'm not sure I have them seated properly based on the advice stated there. Would the butterfly valve misaligned cause my problems? I'm thinking this is probably an obvious question, but want to get some expert opinions before I pull the rack again.

Thanks!
Doug

 

The butterflys ARE the sync', you must do a bench sync' & then a running sync'. The pilot mixture screws should be good to get you started @ 2 3/4 turns out.

 

Thanks Wizard. I did do the bench sync, and that 'seemed" good. But based on my problems today and what I read I was thinking I might have a slightly different problem:

From the "Church of Clean":


"But BEFORE you Bench Synch:

If you have removed the butterfly valves (for whatever reason), then while reinstalling the butterflies, hold the carb up to a light source and look through it. The butterfly valve mounting holes are slotted so that the butterfly position can be fine-tuned. Assemble with the screws very lightly tightened, then hold the carb up to the light so you are looking through the throat. Adjust the butterfly valves so they make a light-proof seal all the way around it's circumference in the throat.

If you can see light, then air will leak past at idle AND the butterfly will probably bind in the throat when things get up to operating temperature. It cannot be stressed enough that the butterfly must seat fully when allowed to close gently under spring pressure without any additional force. NOTE: if in the rack, the #3 carb must have the idle stop screw fully backed off so it does not prevent closing).

Finally, tighten the screws fully and recheck to make sure they didn't move!"

 

If you tighten the screws with the butterfly in the closed possition, it shoud centre itself.

 

Well, I'm not sure which idiot put my carbs back together the first time but this time they are looking good!

The butterfly was not closing all the way on #3. I broke the rack apart, removed the shaft on #3. I paid extra attention to putting it back in and making sure to position the spring properly. I also took some 320 sandpaper and cleaned up the butterflies - they were a bit tight going into the shafts.

I also used the 3x5 card cut into 1/4" strips - worked very nice! I think I'll check the float levels one last time before putting the rack back on the bike. I kinda glad this weekend is going to be cold & rainy - I won't be tempted to hurry things along to go for a ride!