I'm not sure what caused the float to stick but you shouldn't have to worry about hydrolock. If you had tried to start it with the cylinders full of gas, you might have hurt something.

Well thats the thing, the bike died on the road, and i tried quite a few times to restart it, with no avail. So i yanked the battery out and left her there overnight. checked and charged the battery (which was not the problem, but at the time I thought so). picked up the bike the next day and let it sit for the past week as it was, with no battery. then yesterday when finally getting the time to dig in, i found it full of gas like that.

So i would take it to mean it was full of said gas when it died on the side of the road, and I attempted to restart it, to no avail.

I guess what I am wondering here, is this:

IF you manage to hydrolock a motor with gasoline, is there a tell?
Some way to know that there are damaged components now?

I am really at a loss here, because I have heard of a float getting stuck, and puking some gas, sure, but my whole damn motor was filled with gas. Now I really have no idea how to address this issue.

I really like my Roadstar, I even went back to the star after selling my last one and trying out the Mean Streak for awhile, but damned if these stupid Carbs have been nothing but problems for me.

If the motor still turns over freely, then I don't think you have a problem. If you had bent a valve or something, I don't think it would turn over.

Also most of the gas that got into the cylinders was probably from sitting for a week.

Ok, I have not been able to touch this thing for awhile, but let me catch everyone up to speed. Well I buttoned everything back up after pulling the carbs BACK apart and making sure there was no trash in the needle valve. put it all back together, and had to wait on my new motorcycle jack to arrive, so I could get the damn oil changed because it was filled with gas.

New jack arrived and I did the oil change, and then just yesterday I fired her up for the first time in about a month. She fired up just fine, but it appears the float/needle valve is still sticking because It wont stop filling the BAK and Intake with gas.

I didnt let it get as bad as last time, and fill the motor (I just did a dang oil change with Amsoil, and would like not to ruin it). SSSOOOOOOOooo
I pulled the carb out.........again......and I checked to see if the float is actually floating Correctly in some gasoline:



it floats.

I checked my needle:




and it APPEARS to be fine, but I really dont know what I am looking at here.

I then checked my needle "seat":




Again everything looks good, but I really dont know squat about carbs in the first place to know what at all I am looking at.

I have checked the service manual diagrams (which suck and are anything but helpful) and it doesnt appear that I am missing any o-rings or whatnot.

If anyone could help, I would really appreciate it, because this is getting to be so depressing that I'm about to have to sell my friggin bike, over a carb issue I cant figure out.

All I know is I put everything back in the way it came out and now it pisses gas everywhere.

Oh I forgot to mention that before pulling the carb back apart, I simply removed it from the bike, and did a "bench test" with a bottle filled with gasoline attatched to a peice of fuel line hose hooked up to the carb.

Supposedly the carb is supposed to fill to its proper level and then stop filling? which is the function of the float/needle valve assembly?

Well it didnt stop, it just slowly leaked gas all over the friggin place.

I've never worked on the R* carb but they are all similar. Something in the needle or seat or float is keeping it from shutting off the gas. You could try the bench test with the bowl off and maybe see what the problem is that way.

Mine did this to me about a week ago. Hydrolock and all. I went to start it, and nada just like a dead battery, except it was trying to spin the motor. You could feel the life there, but the motor wouldn't turnover. I thought the decompression solenoid was messing up, then noticed I could smell gas, and saw a puddle under the bike. I shut the gas off, and put the bike in 5th, and rolled it about 6 or 8 feet, and tried it again with the throttle wide open to help with the flooded situation. It started up, and I've had no issues since. I shut the fuel off now, every time before I turn the key off.
Don't know what to say about it. This is a separate issue from the carb puke thingie, and I have a new needle and seat as of march. I wondered if maybe there was something between the carb inlet and the needle and seat that was causing it to stick open slightly(I pulled the screen filter in the inlet when I went pumpless), but haven't pulled it apart to back flush it from the needle and seat back through the inlet yet.

Um........without the float bowl on, wont the carb just leak fuel out of where the bowl is SUPPOSED to be filling with gas? Im not being argumentative or anything, and am more than willing to try just about anything, but it just sounds like that would be tantamount to pouring gas straight on the ground.