She tried to kill me yesterday...

So now I must decide whether to divorce her or go to counseling.
My XJ650j attempted to squirt out from under me twice yesterday. I had just filled up and noticed the gas consumption was way up. She was running rough and I was getting a heavy gas smell at the lights on the way home. I lost traction on both a a right turn and a left turn. When I got home, she died while I was parking her. I noticed the rear tire was covered with oiil and found oil coming from the engine breather/airbox drain hose.
Searching the forums I found bigfitz52 has posted:
"Igor, smell your oil. Open the filler and poke your nose in.

If it smells like gasoline, you have a carburetor problem and possibly a petcock problem too.

A stuck float can cause the engine to get filled with gasoline which will cause oil to come out the breather. If this happened suddenly and there is a lot of oil, that is what happened unless you overfilled it."

back in may of 2010.

Igor had overfilled, I unfortunately have the other problem. Yes the oil smells of gas. Can anyone expand on this problem and give me a complete picture of how far I must go (rebuild the engine or just the carbs and replace the oil and filters) to make this bike roadworthy again.

The honeymoon is over and I must turn a wrench. (Cursed with perfect weather for the last month.)

 

Drain the oil replace with new. Pull the carbs and rebuild them also check your petcock make sure its working properly. Pinch off the vac line to the carbs start it up run the gas out of the carbs. It will run for about a min that should be enough to get all the parts in the engine coated with new oil before you get into the carbs. that will also make it easier to pull your carbs off without making a total mess if you cant get your drain screws out. if it runs longer then a min or to your petcock is not working or is in the prime setting.

 

It sounds like a float level issue... probably just one of the floats stuck.
I noticed while cleaning my rack that the floats stick a little so I shaved the
offending corners of the floats with a razor.
I bet some will disagree with this technique but,
it made me feel comfortable knowing the sticking
might be minimized.

I also replaced my petcock with a manual type.

 

Thanks for the quick responses, I have to go to work in an hour so it will be tomorrow (40% CHANCE OF RAIN). I live in a one room place and will not jepordize my living arrangements by bring the bike in the house (Landlady is bodacious and I have a great deal on this place). I can get away with rebuilding the carbs in here (window and door open and a fan running). But I must leave the rolling chassis outside under a tarp. So I don't want to expose the internals to the elements any longer than necessary. Does XJparts have a carb rebuild kit (gaskets o-rings, etc.) I tried to read the parts cat. but the narrative (I like it's detail) gets in the way of quickly finding what I need.

 

Someday I must get Chacal to let me build up a fresh version of his catalog in PDF format -- I had everything bookmarked to make finding things easier.

Yes, he does stock carb rebuild kits. The HCP2776 kit comes with the needle, valve seat, etc, but doesn't have the float bowl gasket -- that part number is HCP50.

Get with Chacal, and he'll hook you up.