carb woes

so i bought my xj650 maxim off a guy at work.
week later titled and working towards my bike license and i move the bike out of the garage to move it out of the way moved it back in and my oldest daughter says uh daddy theres stuff leaking out of your motorcycle... ARRRgh!
looks like all four carbs puked in my garage. huge gasoline puddle ... i checked the hoses they look good the dripping is from the carbs. only thing i did was put some seafoam in the tank and some more gasoline
im not a mechanic nor am i mechanically inclined per say. should i try and do it myself or should i take it somewhere. i really dont know whats wrong other than gasoline is leaking out of all four carbs.
supposedly the carbs were done 2 years ago according to the guy i bought the bike from.

 

Check your petcock setting. "prime" setting will let fuel run straight through, "on" setting works only with vaccum from engine running. If you don't have one, get yourself an owner's manual, helps A LOT...

skillet

 

Hopefully its on prime if not your going to have to drain the gas. If you did not know it you will probably need to change your oil from the gas. Hopefully you want to learn how to do basic repairs.The bike is 28 years old it will need maintenance. If you bought the bike thinking your going to be able to just get on it and ride probably not going to happen until you get all the kinks worked out

 

Agree with cutlass79500. It could be a stuck float too. There are alot of resources on this site that deal with carburation [problems. There's a good chance you will need to rebuild the carbs at some point.

Did the PO ride the bike frequently? Did he have any carb issues?

You might want to purchase the XJ CD to get you started.

 

yeah it was on prime so im an idiot.. thankfully its not doing it now. the battery is shot i thought it would hold a charge but its dead already after being fully charged yesterday.. but it bump started just fine.

Does a stuck float unstick itself?
@xjazz he had carbs rebuilt 2 years ago but stored it in an unheated shed with gas in it over the winter... and in 2 years he owned it he olny put about 50 miles on it.

its smoking like a booger now but it is running. I'm completely lost on how to change the oil / filter if it even has one on this bike. i can change the oil in my car but im lost on bikes last bike i owned was a ducati and i always paid to have it serviced.

 

and no i wasnt thinking this was a gas and go kind of bike i knew what it was when i bought it all bikes need some sort work.
was running like a banshee a week ago so i was hoping it wasnt something serious. thankfully it seems like it wasnt. but i still need a battery it seems.

 

Sometimes floats will unstick if the petcock is working properly when you shut the bike off gas stops flowing. Acts like a safety devise just in case this happens

 

so it was either a stuck float or it was just the petcock being on prime. ( which it was, and has been since i bought it) so yeah... looking forward to getting it out and about but im kinda scared to fill it up since it leaked out.. gas is nearly 4bucks a gallon and dont really want it to be all over my garage floor if i fill it up and that wasnt the problem and something else was wrong.

maybe im just being timid. but it doenst seem to be doing it now and i put about a half a gallon of gas in with a gas can and it seems to not be flowing out now. I guess ill get a battery and then see whats the go.

 

You also need to check the crankcase for a gas smell. Stuck float could also mean gas in crankcase, which is bad bad bad.

What color is the smoke?
White=water
blue=oil
black=bad juju

My guess would just be moisture being burnt off from not being run much in the last couple years.

Oil change is pretty easy. You need:
a Fram CH6003 filter - comes with both o-rings you need
a couple of wrenches
3 liters of motorcycle oil.

Read this

Should have everything you need explained in there

 

@Tskaz white. no gas smell from case.