Topic: Starting/Idling Issue. Need help!

[jrboyce1983]

My girlfriend has been hard at work on her 76' CB550F SS for a few weeks now. Btw, seeing a 115 lbs tiny woman try to man handle a set of carbs out of a 30+ year old motorcycle is probably the funniest/hottest thing ive seen in a long time lol. She has replaced all four spark plugs bc the old ones were in rough shape, torn down, cleaned out and rejetted all four carbs with the keyster rebuild kits (special thanks to jerrys cycles), new battery, and checked all electrics. The bike is rough to start, it takes a few tries to get it to turn over, but when it does it winds up really fast over about 3 seconds then it cuts off. She came to me for a suggestion of what to do and im at a loss, ive never seen a bike do this, usually if it has a high idle it just stays at a high idle (from what ive seen). any input would be great. She is chomping at the bit to get out and ride.

[my78k]

Did you replace both the idle and main jets? Generally hard start issues like that tend to be plugged idle jets assuming all else is well. I would say to check a few things:
Idle jets (if not new then do a THOROUGH cleaning of them including running a wire through all the holes)
Fuel routing (make sure the fuel can flow freely to the carbs)
Float height
Also check for air leaks at the carb boots
Also the usual tune up stuff like timing, valve clearance etc etc

Dennis

[jrboyce1983]

replaced all the jets with new ones (didnt want to take a chance). adjusted the float levels back to factory specs (according to clymer manual) using a float level gauge. I was thinking it may be something with the idle setting.