'85 xj700 wont Idle without choke

I'm new to this forum and have very limited experience working with motorcycles. I recently bought a 1985 xj 700 that was not running and hadn't run for a while (year or more). The first thing I found was that the starter solenoid was not connected so I connected it and the bike cranked and started up however it will not Idle without the choke being about half out. It also dies if I give it any throttle. I removed the carbs, cleaned them, and tried to bench sync (first time so I hope I did it well!) but still have the same issue. It does not have any mufflers and no air filter ( not sure if that matters but figured I'd give as much info as I could). I figured it must be running lean because it needs the choke to be pulled to Idle? Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

Put an air filter on it.

This may not be the solution to your problem, but our bikes NEED to have air restriction.

As for removing and cleaning the carbs, did you follow the church of clean?

 

The air box that came with the bike is broken and sans filter so I'll have to order something (maybe pods although I've read bad things). As for the church of clean, I cleaned them before finding this forum so I did not follow any guides I just kind of dug in and cleaned up what I could see. Where is the Church of clean? I could of swore I saw it a little earlier but I just looked and could not find it. Thanks!

 

Do you have the muffler to re-install? To make it easier you need this bike as close to stock if you're still going through setup/sync.

It's normal to crap out giving it gas with the choke on... Is the idle screw set high enough so it actually opens the throttle up on idle? I guess we're all assuming that your compression is ok here, was that checked? the vacuum caps on the intake manifolds, are they in good shape (not dry and cracked up)?

I had one of my carb's idle circuits plugged, which meant it only ran on 3 cylinders at idle; those passages can get pretty gummed up. Working on those old bikes can be a lesson in patience.

 

http://xjbikes.com/forums/index.php?threads/in-the-church-of-clean.14692/

Also, can you take a photo of the broken air box?

 

mwhite74 -
I do not have the mufflers and did not check compression. How would I go about checking it? The vacuum caps are in good shape and I will double check the idle screw when I get home but it seemed to be set to where it did open up the throttle.

Gulrok-
Thanks for the link! When I get home I can take a picture of the broken airbox. It is missing the chrome "guards" on the corners and also has a hole in it about the size of a half dollar.

 

Sounds like you still have some jets clogged and your running on the idle circuits. Off you go, back into the carbs again

 

Thanks for the advice! I messed with it a bit last night and by manipulating the idle adjustments including the main idle adjustment screw I was able to get it to run a little better but still needs some tweaking. I'm gonna go ahead and rebuild the petcock as it seems fuel is getting behind the diaphram because it drips from the vaccum side of the petcock while the bike is running and I'm going to break down and reclean the carbs following the church of clean. Does anyone have any recommendations as far as where I can get a petcock rebuild kit and carb parts?

Gulrok-
Below I've included pictures of the airbox. Thanks

 

Click on the logo in the upper right corner, XJ4ever. Len can set you up with any parts you might need.
You might be able to save the air box with a little fiberglass reconstruction.
A couple of questions; Are the valves in spec? Did you set/check the float height (dry and wet)?
When you say the mufflers are missing, are the collector and pipes still there or is the whole system gone. If you just need mufflers, that's no big deal.

 

I didn't check the valves (but will), I'll also check compression after I get stuff cleaned and back together. As far as the floats go, I just checked that they were all set to the same height as each other (they were w/out me adjusting anything). The collector and pipes are there so just missing the mufflers.

 

You'll waste more time and money trying to repair the airbox... Just replace it.

Don't bother with compression numbers til you have the valve shims back in spec. But, if you want to do them first, just know in advance that out if spec shims can be the cause of low compression numbers

 

I'm with hogfiddles--get the valves in specs and then check the compression. After you confirm that the engine internals are ok you can start with all the other stuff. The air filter and mufflers are extremely important in getting the carbs set correctly. Try to go back to stock configuration, but any filter is better than no filter. When I got my 85 XJ700n it had a UNI foam filter but stock otherwise. When I changed to a stock filter the bike ran very rich requiring a major adjustment to the pilot screws. I would be surprised if you can get it adjusted without a filter or mufflers.