engine bog

I've been getting a little frustrated trying to find the source of an engine bog problem on the bike I bought last fall.

Symptoms
1. starts up fine. (Even before I cleaned the carbs which did have clogged enrichment circuits)
2. When its just started and the choke is on it almost feels normal
3. Warmed up the bike bogs very bad and hardly idles.
4. Mis fires and exhaust pops while accelerating (or trying to accelerate at least)

Thought it was dirty carbs so I cleaned them, nope
Thought it was float height problems, nope
Checked valve clearance. One intake was .007 (weird supposed to be between .004 and .006. Don't they wear tighter? Bike does have less than 3k)
Tore carbs apart again to check and make sure I had all the jets in the correct location and that no one had done any re jetting. That was all ok.

Here is something I found that may be the root of my problem. Can't test it for a few days, but wanted to share my findings. Look at the needle on the right, its not all the way seated. Two of the four were like this. It did pop back into place with some force. Anyone seen this before?



Also, even though the bike only has 3k look what some previous mechanic managed to do.

 

thats a new one for me.

 

Got it all hooked up today and it runs.

At first it was showing some of the same symptoms but I decided to put a few miles on it out of stubbornness. It stalled on me a few times but eventually came out of it and started idling and running like a normal bike. Someone tried to run me over real slow at a 4 way stop and I had to jump off and drop my bike (boo drivers not paying attention) after I picked it up and finally got it started again it ran even better.

Got home, synced it and it runs even better. Just need my color tune to come in the mail so I can figure that out.

So I think those needles were the root of my problem.