VF500F Starting woes after a carb clean

Hey Guys! It seems I'm in a bit of a pickle.

Bought an '85 vf500f in the spring and rode it for 2000 relatively trouble free miles. Idle occasionally failed to remain steady, sometimes sticking at 3,000 while other times going back down to ~1.5. I searched around and found that it was most likely the idle circuit in the carbs, so I knew I had to address that sometime. I finally decided to take a look at the carbs this weekend and clean them out. They seemed relatively fine, I was able to look through all four idle jets but soaked and cleaned them anyway. When I put everything back on the bike it simply wouldn't start. I played around for a while until eventually I was able to get it to weakly run with both full throttle and full choke, but eventually it died.

What's going on here!?
What I've checked for:
Spark: Yes
Fuel: All four float bowl drain screws yield gas
Jets: Clean
Compression: Have not checked but bike ran fine the day before. Barring catastrophe I think I have decent compression.
Slides and Diaphragms: Functioning
Idle adjust screws: Did not touch at first, subsequently experimented with different turns which yielded nothing, currently have them returned to the state they were in when the bike was running.
Synch? I bench synched before putting them back in.

I'm scratching my head here. I'm not sure what I can do here but take the carbs off again and examine them with a microscope. I'll throw up some picture tomorrow if that would help.

 

Merely seeing a bit of light through the slow jets is NO GUARANTEE THAT THEY ARE OPEN TO THEIR ORIGINAL SIZE !! Deposits can form that partially block the hole but still let light pass through. On ly the use of a thin steel wire (.010") poked clear through will open the holes up properly if they were badly clogged.



Cleaning the idle circuit also requires that you remove idle mixture screws and blast carb cleaner followed by compressed air through the hole (best done while idle jets are removed).

Dija check and verify correct float heights ?

 

I hadn't threaded wire through them so I did today. I also blasted carb cleaner thorough the idle mixture holes. I reinstalled the carbs and the bike started, but didn't want to fall below 4~5k rpm. I'm guessing I hadn't cleaned out the slow jets properly, and now I might be dealing with leaking carb boots.

I did not however measure the float heights.

 

And why not ??

For the high speed running, ch heck that the throttle plates are n ot being held open by misadjusted throttle cables.

 

Sorry for the late reply. Float height measurement entirely slipped my mind, will be doing when I pull the carbs off again tomorrow. I sprayed the boots with starter fluid and no change in the rpm. The throttle plates are returning to their fully closed position.

 

Hey all! After some time in storage I pulled the bike out and finally got it to a mechanic. It turns out that my carburetors had become out of synch. Idles, runs perfectly now.

 

Remove all plugs, brush off carbon and water paper sand between the contacts so it's shiny.. Pop em back in.. I've seen plugs foul badly in 2 minutes of swinging..

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