Multiple (Carburetor?) Problems

[chrisptip]

Hi, I have a 1983 GS550L that has given me nothing but trouble. When I got it, I cleaned the carb, put in new spark plugs, new gas, and new float bowl gaskets. However, it still does a few things that I genuinely have no idea how to fix.

• The first problem is that there's a 50/50 chance that it'll leak gas out of the intake side of the carb body. I set the floats to literally as low as they would go and it seemed to fix it for a bit, but then it started to intermittently leak gas again.
• The second problem is that it almost never holds a constant idle. Sometimes it idles too low, sometimes it's buzzing at 4000 rpm, and sometimes it will seem to idle fine until you give it some throttle, and it will just die or just sound like it's struggling and won't go past 2000 rpm.
• The third and kind of least important problem is that it takes forever to start. Something along the lines of multiple five-second cranks. For the most part, this goes away once it warms up, but it might be tied to the rest of the issues.

This is only the third bike I've worked on so I don't have a ton of knowledge. The first two just needed new spark plugs, new gas, and a carb clean, and I thought this one needed the same judging by the description on Facebook Marketplace, but that was not the case. Thank you guys for your help, really any piece of knowledge or advice would be greatly appreciated!
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[chuck hahn]

So i see one problem for sure. You set floats "AS LOW AS THEYLL GO". Well the lower the hts the higher the gas level in the bowls. Conversely the higher the hts the lower fuel levels. You need to set them according to manual specs. And you need to do a good bench sync when rebuilding them. I rebuild carbs and heres a place with tutorials and other resources. You can follow a turtorial or if youd like me to do them just send me a PM. Your choice. Look up NESSISM here for the CV carb oring kit.
Fuel level has much to do with whether the cylinders get too much fuel and theres only so much that will ignite .After that you get symptoms like you describe.

BikeCliff's Website

[chrisptip]

Whoops, my bad, I meant to say that I set them as high as they could go. I also tried to set them to the manual specs and gas was still pouring out of the carbs. I'll look into syncing too, since I was given and old mercury-type syncing tool.

[chuck hahn]

How did you clean them? full tear down and dip in carb cleaner? Did you replace orings on the float seats? Clean the float seats very good with carb spray and a Qtip? Float needles also very clean? Observed the needles rise and fall as you move floats up and down? Ensure floats arent tilted and possibly catching on the bowl gaskets? You gotta be thorough and carbs need to be really clean inside. A spray out with carb spray doesnt cut it.

EDIT, floats can stick even if everything else seems fine. Tap with a heavy wrench on the angle iron mounting rail to jiggle them free. Do not tap on the carb body or the bowls.

[chuck hahn]

Set the mixture screws at 2 turns out from gently seated. Slowly turn them in and when they want to stop dont force them furter. then count 2 full turns out.