1984 VF500F carburetor issues

New to the forum and Interceptors. A couple buddies have had them in the past- 84 500 and 85 VF1000R. I just picked up an 84 500 in great shape. Of course, it "ran when I parked it!" lol Well, I cleaned the carbs and got some rebuild kits from Billy's Outback and new boots from Roukama Motorparts in Holland. Did the adjustment for "bench sync" on page 4-15/16 of the service manual and I adjusted the pilot screws to 2 1/2 each. Got it all together and it started right up.
Problem I was having was it wouldn't idle and when I adjusted the idle up to around 1000, after I revved it, it would hang around 3-4000 like an air/vacuum leak. I was thinking maybe it was a linkage/cabling issue so I removed the tank, air cleaner box, and metal screen so I could see the slide movement, etc. and hooked up my "troubleshooting tank" (old plastic lawn mower tank).
I fired it up and it ran perfectly. Idled around 1000, when revved up slides moved up and down without a hitch, and went back to 1000 idling. When I put it back together, it doesn't want to idle. I'm at my wit's end!! Any insight would be greatly appreciated. -Mark

 

Couple things...

Make sure you have enough slack in the throttle cables. The proper routing is tricky on the 500s.

Are you 100% sure you have the carbs fully seated in the new insulators?

Did you remove the pilot screws (with the spring, washer and o-ring) when you cleaned the carbs?

What size pilot jet was installed? 500s REALLY like having 38 pilot jets installed.

 

I had a hanging throttle mainly due to a tolerance stack up with the airbox, wiring loom and fairing. I readjusted at the bars and bam, good to go. Thanks Capt! lol

 

Capt- thanks for the reply. I routed the cables per the manual. I’m 99.9% sure they are seated. Yes, I removed the pilot screws. Not sure what pilot jets are installed.
What I found peculiar was it ran perfectly without the airbox and tank mounted. One thing I didn’t do was to put the airbox on while the troubleshooting tank was on.

 

It actually shouldn't run perfectly without the airbox. It should run kinda crappy because it should be very lean without those restrictions.

 

Exactly!!

 

^^ I don't even bother running a my vf hondas without an airbox. they just don't like to be nekkid