Well, I’m completely stumped. I bought a running-ish 1985 vt700c and was looking forward to cleaning it up and getting it running smoothly, being a car mechanic I was pretty confident I’d be able to bang this job out and be riding in no time, no such luck. Here’s where I’m at: I have cleaned the carbs out 3x now (new float bowl gaskets, new float needles, new stock jets, cleaned the intake/strainer filter, cleaned needle jet, cleaned throttle body and the idle jet holes, adjusted float height), and have replaced the fuel system (filter/pump/fuel lines) and the battery. The bike also did not come with the stock air-box, so I’ve rigged a large pod filter onto the end of the snorkel.

The bike will kind of idle on one cylinder (front), but usually for not very long and stalls with any throttle or if I lessen the choke. The rear cylinder is not firing at all as far as I can tell (exhaust is still cold to the touch). If i break out the starter fluid and shoot it directly into the carbs both cylinders will fire right up and I can even give it some throttle and the bike sounds perfectly fine. Which makes me think It’s just a carb problem starving the cylinders for fuel, right? Except I cannot for the life of me figure out why the carbs wouldn’t be working properly. The carbs have fuel in the bowls and one of the spark plugs in the rear cylinder is wet with fuel, but the other is not. Compression on the rear (dead) cylinder read at 120, and the front (running) cylinder read at 105 The need to re-jet for the new air intake should only cause the bike to run mediocrely, correct? Any idea what else to check in the carbs or anywhere else on the bike? Looking forward to any help or questions to help narrow down this problem, thanks.