Well me and my friend took my tank off to clean the carbs but only had to remove the cover. The previous owner had cleaned them. It is very slowly dripping out of the little nipples on the bottom of each bowl. I have to use the choke every time in order to start it because they get drained but once i get it running it idles fine. Any ideas? I think it may be the gaskets but I hate replacing gaskets and seals.

 

It's a good thing you have to use the choke to start the bike. If you don't have to use the choke, the bike's fueling is way too rich and it'll run poorly when it's warmed up.

There's a flathead screw on the side of each bowl that opens and closes the drain valve at the bottom of the bowl. I don't remember if there's an O-ring on the screw or not, but if there is, there's a really good chance they've rotted. If not, maybe they're not fully tightened, or someone reefed them closed and now the drain screw wont seal.

The float bowl gasket shouldn't be seeing fuel when the bike's level, so that shouldn't be leaking, but stranger things have happened. Since you say the bike's idling fine, the floats and float needles should be in good shape. Otherwise, you'd have too much or too little fuel in the bowls and it'd idle poorly.

I'd take off your carbs and give em a good look. It's not a big deal that they leak, it's not really going to effect anything. If you don't care about this it's not a big deal if you don't fix it though.

 

Take them completely off and clean them again. You can't clean carbs enough...

 

How is leaking fuel not cause for concern? Not only for the fire risk but how much $ are you flushing down the drain? Especilly with the cost of fuel these days. It will also cause running problems.

A propperly running bike will not need to use to choke every time it is started. The choke is for COLD starting not everytime starting. The chokes purpose is to richen the mixture upon cold start. Its like a mini carb.

To the OP, the carbs are leaking for a couple reasons. There is an o-ring on the float bowl drain screw. Make sure its tight. It is most likely not the cause of the problem, but who knows. If it is tight then the most likely cause is the float needle & seat. The needle is either bad or there is a build up of gunk or trash on the seat. The float needle seat is not replacable on these carbs so it will need to be cleaned thoroughly. Take some aluminum pollish & a Q-tip & spin it in the seat to clean out any build up. You wont hurt anything by doing this. Make sure to get all the pollish out. Some good carb cleaner will work ok.

Take the carbs off & clean them.

 

pull the rack and clean them...fully disassamble and clean all the ports in the carb body and make sure they are clean.. dont try and take a short cut becouse it will come back and bit you in the ***..if you need help there is a good thread on this in the tech page..