Thanks to straycat's "1993 and up" carb synching guide, as well as naga thai's images, which also helped supplement that, from his version, I slowly worked my way around cleaning out and then subsequently synched my carbs. when I first hooked them up, before any adjustment, (I used the low-tech analog dial-type tool that looks like a clock face), carb 1 was at about a "7 oclock" position, carb 2 was at about an 8 oclock position, carb 3 was at about 11 oclock, and carb 4 was at about a 1 or 2 oclock, roughly.
After an hour or so of tinkering back and forth with the three adjustments, and tinkering with the idle, and the choke slider thing, and remembering to use the mightyvac to continue to apply vacuum to allow gas to flow, as illustrated in stray cat's guide (luckily i bought a mighty vac a couple years ago to help bleed the bike's brakes), I finally (THINK) they are all evened out at about 8:30/8 oclock position during idle at about 1100/1200 rpms. when i give it a little throttle, it doesn't even seem to bog down first like it did before.
It seems to be idling a lot better than it ever has since I've owned the bike. Actually, this is probably the first time the carbs have been synched in about a decade, as the previous owner was my uncle, at least 5 years ago, and he had it for several years, and has less mechanical know-how than I do.
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HOWEVER, I have not had a chance to go on a trial ride, but something alarms me. very infrequently, I believe carb 1 (piston 1?) seems to backfire, almost. when all of the hoses from the synch tool were still hooked up, put without the guages connected, every now and then, it that one hose coming off of where carb 1 was connected would sort of *pop* in a sputtery kind of way, almost like a cough, and liquid would come out (gasoline, i suppose). I really think I did a decent enough job matching up the vacuum from all of the carbs, but I'm not sure If that fixed everything. I plan on updating after I get a chance to ride it around the block. Anyone have a guess at what could cause this?
Also, it looks like I have to figure out how to find a leak in the cooling system. I had put plain water in there, just for the time being, and after a week, the tank was bone dry.
Thanks for the support and for every problem I've had so far, guys.
Nick

 

I got home, checked that the battery was charged (after a day of trickle charging), literally (unfortunately) dusted off a thin layer of dust from my helmet, and planned on warming up the bike, and hopefully give it a test ride around the block to see if things seemed okay.
After all that work sunday I had hoped that all would be fine.
Now, I can't seem to start the thing up. Used to the few seconds or so I've always had to hold the starter button down before the engine would finally spring to life, I kept trying and trying, even spraying a little starter fluid in the air intake area. It worked for a couple seconds, but then very quickly died. I didn't have time tonight to try to pull the whole thing apart again to get a good look, but needless to say, I was very disappointed at this turn of events. I will post again when I get the time to open it up (probably this weekend).
In the interim, if anyone has any suggestions or insight, such help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Nick

 

You did remember to hook your vacuum line to the petcock, did you not? And to turn the petcock to the on position? And there is fuel in the tank?

From your first post it sounds like carb one might have a sticking float valve and be flooding.

Another thought: is the vacuum shutoff on your petcock working? If not you might see a large puddle of gas under the bike from an overflow line. Or, heaven forbid, a few gallons of gas in your oil pan. Check your oil level.

Finding a coolant leak can be difficult, especially with plain water in the system. Once the engine is warm enough to build pressure it is also warm enough to evaporate coolant seeping out. The most common place for a leak is the plastic T connector just down from the radiator cap (or so I heard - and that's where mine leaked).

We used to use a pressure tester for automotive cooling systems when cold. It fastened on in place of the radiator cap and had a pump that would pressurize the system to ten or fifteen pounds. Then we could nose around all the various hoses and fittings looking for wet spots, drips or gushes. Don't know if they make one to fit bikes, but maybe you could jury rig one.

Good luck.

 

How are things going? Did you solve the problem?