Well, I've been very bad and haven't ridden my 1000F in a long time. I didn't intend to do it, but it just happend. I knew that I'd have to pull the carbs and clean them thoroughly.

I pulled them off and did the usual cleaning of the jets, float valves, and needle jet. I also removed all of the old gas from the tank and fuel lines. (what a smelly mess). After putting back on the bike, I couldn't get her to start to save my life. A quick check of the one of the bowls showed no gas. Well, the Petcock was not opening. I was using a vacuum pump to activate it, but no gas. I took it apart and it was stuck. A little encouragement and it opened. Put it back together and tried to start again. I could tell she had gas, but even with full choke, she was barely trying. Like firing on 1 cylinder. I could also smell a heavy aroma of gas, but no fuel that I could see anywhere.

So, I pulled them again. The first time, I hadn't split the carbs from the rail, but since I don't think that it had ever been done I went ahead and split them. The joint "O" rings looked horrible. They were encrusted and hard. The joint tubes fit porely and there was some play in them. I ordered some new "O" rings and joints. I wasn't sure which item to order so I orderded a few different things. Here is what the joint looked like. It't the tube that the fuel lines attach to. Probably where the fuel smell was coming from.


This is a comparison of the "O" rings, new and old. You can see how squared off they were and all the pitting in the surface of the rubber.


I used a piece of ScotchBrite pad on the end of a screwdriver to clean out the opening that they went into. The larger opening to the right is where I cleaned the corrosion off it.


The upper part is about $18 US, and the bottom part is about 7$ US. There's no need to purchase the upper one. The bottom one has the "O" ring for the fuel lines as well as the vent joint.

After replacing the above items, I didn't have any more fuel smell, but she still wouldn't start. In the past she's always been easy to start so I knew something wasn't right. I had pulled jets and cleaned them well so I was fairly sure it wasn't them. After a lot of trying, she did start up. I let her warm up, and then she would start easily. I went ahead and synchronized the carbs since I had split them.

At this point I figured that the problem had to be with the Choke portion for cold starting. I know I had cleaned the main jet, and the slow jet, but the one that you can't take out I wasn't sure of. On close inspection of this tube, I could see that fuel was just sitting there, whereas the other jets were not holding any residual fuel (the one without the slot).


I used a twistie tie from a loaf of bread to poke into the opening. It was totally clogged. After a couple of minutes, I was able to work in through and clean the hole.



Afterwords, It looked like this.


You can see the small opening now. 3 out of the 4 caruretors had those openings clogged. I put the carburetors back together, and on the bike and she fired up on the 2nd try.