Poor throttle response - No gas leak this time

[Molotov256]

Hey all, this post is entirely unrelated to my last post about bogging throttle - different bike, different engine, different carb, different scenario, but similar symptoms. The only problem is what I learned last time isn't helping this time. **** the luck.

I've finally got the bike I wrecked up and running again - a super nice coworker welded a new front end on to the cruiser I snapped the front axle on. It rides like a dream now! Sadly, the engine isn't running too well. When I give it gas, even at idle, it bogs down. If I'm riding and pedaling it, it eventually picks back up and runs real nice, but it's not sounding too happy about it.

I replaced the exhaust gasket and don't see any sign of leaking otherwise, but this definitely sounds like an air leak to me. I had similar symptoms on my other bike, but it was leaking gas out of the air filter; this one is not. This bike also has a new carb on it. Suggestions?

 

[GearNut]

What color is the sparkplug?
It sounds like it is too rich, but the sparkplug color will tell you alot.
White/ light tan = too lean.
black/ black and wet = too rich.
You must check it just after it messes up. Do not try to make it run correctly at higher speeds. Thsat will only mess up the color "print" on the sparkplug.
Oh yeah, if it comes out medium tan and wet then that also indicates too rich at low speeds. The difference is the engine did not run long enough to color print the plug but the wet with fuel tells the story of being too rich at low speed. Sorta like "reading between the lines".

 

[Molotov256]

ANOTHER sunk float!?

Thanks for the tip gearnut - I tried adjusting the needle height to no avail, so I just put it back on the middle of 5 notches.

As it turns out, I pulled the bowl off to check the float, and sure enough, the float was 30% full of fuel, so it was sinking. The float I'd ordered for my OTHER carb that did the SAME thing came in the mail today, so I popped it into this one and it ran like a champ.

So what's up with these sinking floats? Design flaw? Poor materials? It's a pain in the @$$ if they're gonna keep filling up with fuel every week or two.