OK, most likely your floats are stuck open. I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but the float needle is a square needle in a round hole. It's easy for those needles to get stuck after they've been taken apart and put back together. The corners on the needles have a way of polishing or keeping the contact parts of the inside of that hole they sit in smooth. When you put it back together, they're not in exactly the same position, so they bind easily. The upper black arrow is the hole I'm talking about.


I usually use a small piece of ScotchBrite pad to polish the inside of that brass opening, kind of like here.


You're going to have to pull the carburetors off the bike and remove the float bowls to see which one is stuck. You may not actually see it stuck, just removing the carburetors and turning them upside down may unstick it.

After rebuilding a set of carburetors, I test the operation of the float valves by blowing air into the fuel line that is attached to the carburetors with my mouth. I then tilt the carburetors forwards and backwards which causes the floats to rotate, opening and closing the valves. If I can't blow air into the fuel line, then I know that the floats and float valves are working properly. It's an unusual method, but it's effective. (naturally you would want to make sure there is no fuel in the lines before doing this as you don't want to ingest any fuel)

 

It could be a variety of things. As mentioned above it's most likely a stuck float needle.

A couple other causes could be a cracked float (causing it to fill with fuel and not float and therefor not lift the needle to close the valve) or damaged needles.

Since we all know how big of a pain it is to rip the carbs off and on I would recommend checking all of these at the same time.

You can check the floats for cracks but putting them in a container of water and seeing if they take on any water. If they do they need to be replaced.

To check the float needles: there is a little spring loaded pin on the back of each one of the needles. I had the problem in the past where mine were stuck in and not springing back out. This didn't allow for the valve to close all of the way and caused the bowls to flood. I bought a new set of needles ($20) and I'm good as new.

If you are going through the trouble of ripping your carbs off save yourself the headache and check all of these things at the same time.

 

Thanks for the tips guys. I checked everything concerning the floats and used a scotchbrite pad inside the brass fittings.

I put everything back together again and it didn't leak out this time!
It even started up and and I took it for a little ride.

I have two more questions:
1: has anyone had trouble with the throttle tube wearing out? My throttle sticks unless I manually twist the throttle grip back. But its not on the carbs and the cables seem fine.

2: This bike did have an idle problem before. it moved about 400-500 rpms on it own. this seems to been corrected with the carb clean but I haven't gotten it synced yet. Does this idle seem ok and is it revving down at the normal speed it should when I blip the throttle?
here's a video
Edit: The carbs aren't synced but I set them back to 2-1/2 turns out.

:

 

Congratulations on getting it running again. The idle speed is a little on the high side. It should be right around 1200 RPM. The return to idle does seem to be a little on the slow side. Check the operation of your choke linkage. Make sure that all the enrichment needles are returning to their home positions. Getting the synchronization done may help as well.

Looks like you're making good progress.

 

Thanks.
I checked the choke linkage and all the needles go return.

When I started it yesterday I had to spray a little starting fluid into the carbs. But after it warmed up and I shut it back off I waited a few hours and tried to start it again with the airbox and tank on. It started right up but the engine was still warm.
The bike sat over night so I was cold when I tried to start it up this morning with the choke on. It didn't start.
I took the spark plugs out and they had gas on them. I checked for spark and its there.
I was planning on letting the cylinders air out, cleaning the plugs and then trying to start it without the choke.

 

Did the throttle stick before you pulled the carbs off? I've found that if you don't route the throttle cable just right around the air duct elbows it won't return properly. To test this you would loosen it as far as it will go at both ends to elongate it, if it still sticks and it's routed properly, it's not the problem.

When the carbs are off the bike, the wheel the throttle cables operate (sorry I don't know what it's called) should be very difficult to turn by hand. (This is very unlikely, but in the interest of being thorough, it could be a weak spring).

The only times I've heard of the throttle sticking because of the throttle tube is on bikes that have been down on the right, or if you install custom grips that are put on wrong or are slightly the wrong size. But I've only been around bikes for a few years so maybe someone else has some better ideas.

 

Mine likes to idle at 1500 as well. I'd leave it. When I turn the idle down to 1200 it likes to vary, and hunt around - then die.

Leave it at 1500.

Can you verify that the choke is working? How warm is it where you are? In the last couple of days it's hit 65 degrees F around here and I'm easily able to start the bike without any choke of any kind.

 

I got the throttle working right. I thought it could have been the tube since it was cracked. But it was the cables. I had them set too tight.

When I was attempting to start my bike it was around 48f degrees out. Since then its dropped down to 30f every day so I haven't tried again.

I'm not sure how to check if the choke is working besides visually checking the operation and the needles. Both of which seem to be just fine. I'm hoping it will start up for me when it's warmer out because I'm out of ideas.