2 problems - leaking spark and pissing gas out a carb - advice

Posted by seestheday on Mar 12, 2012; 2:03pm
URL: http://vintage-and-classic-hondas.81.s1.nabble.com/2-problems-leaking-spark-and-pissing-gas-out-a-carb-advice-tp3819330.html

Well, I put my headers back on after painting them flat black,  put everything together, fired up the bike and started to sync the carbs but I noticed that my #1 carb was pissing gas.  When I cleaned the carbs I re-used all the parts and the #1 carb did give me a problem at first with the float bowl getting stuck.  When I still had them off the bike I took the #1 off again and was able to get it to hold gas.  Now that it sat through the winter it's pissing gas again.  I think I'm just going to buy a carb kit and redo that one carb.  Shouldn't be too difficult, just a bit of a pain.

The other problem that I noticed was that I now see the spark on the side of the engine.  I was never able to see this before.  Is this common after a bike has sat through a winter?  Could it be related to the headers, or is it more probable that it's the gasket that has shrunk over the winter?  Could it resolve on it's own after I ride it for a bit and the gasket gets a chance to warm up?  Is it dangerous?

I was really hoping to ride it this week, but if I have to pull the engine out to fix the gasket then that's what I'm going to have to do.