FJ600 carb help

My girl has a sweet '85 FJ600 she purchased from the original owner. Among other things, the carbs were rebuilt about two years ago when we put it back on the road.
This bike has always been a b*tch to crank if not ridden regularly....and I'm talking a Royal PITA! If ridden regularly, it cranks everytime and runs great.
I tried to start it about two weeks ago and fuel just poured out of the bike. Being a 4 cylinder and the way the tank is configured I just couldn't tell where it was coming from. It ONLY leaked if the engine was turning over, NEVER when sitting.
- I removed the tank hoping to find a loose or cracked fuel line. Nope.
- I ruled out the petcock becuase it only leaks under vacuum. The tank has been on the garage floor for about 5 days now and hasn't leaked a drop.
-I pulled the carbs and checked all the floats. The needle valves move freely and the floats are all at 23mm. No gas in any floats.
-Reassembled carbs and hooked up a spare tank. They sat overnight and didn't leak a drop.

We did find a small bug in the #1 float bowl (We suspect the leak is from the #1 and/or #2 carb). The bug was maybe 2mm and I have no idea how it could get in there

 

I did notice that there are two barbs on the carbs, one for each pair. The best we can tell from the manual is that they're some sort of breather or balance tube. Should I just hook them together? That's what it looks like in the manual, but there's no clear pic and no mention of them.

 

We cleaned the plugs, charged the battery and will change the oil while we're at it, but before I put these things back on the bike and try again....any ideas?
I'm out of ideas, so I'll probably put them back on the bike this morning and see what happens.

 

Those barbed Ts are probably vents. If so, they shouldn't be hooked together.

They may have connected to the air box, or just had hoses hanging down. Check the hose routing section of your service manual.

Getting the vents taken care of should reduce bug entry :wink:

Oh, before installing invert the carburetors and blow into the fuel line, make sure the float needles aren't leaking.

 

Well, I got it all back together today and....SHE RUNS! No leaks, either. Not sure what I did, other than inspecting everything and making sure the needle valves weren't sticking. I did run a short piece of hose from each barb...about three inches long.
I went ahead and changed the oil, charged the battery and lubed up the chain and cables. She's ready to ride now!

 

I think that you healed it when you got the bug out..... Sorry. I promise to never do this again! You must admit though that Scott-S did hang it out there!

 

Scott-s, those are vents and on my FZR (similar carb setup) they both vent to atmospheric so I can't see for the life of me why they couldn't have some vent screens installed. You might try to use a crankcase breather filter and route both hoses into it to control your pest issues.

 

For the youngsters:

Back in the old days the first computers were electromechanical. Instead of transistors (which were before integrated circuits) they were based on switches and relays.

A moth caught in a relay caused a computation error. Hence the term "DEBUGGING" a program.

 

I still get a kick out of this. My dad used to tell me stories about finding weird bugs (literally) in some of the ooooold circuits for low-tech stuff on the old EC-135 stratotankers that would do strange things. Like make the boom only want to fly left.

I can only imagine the confusion on a pilot's face when he tries to couple with the tanker, to just keep having the boom moving left on him, lol.