Fuel drain tube...i think

I have 08 1100 vstar, haven"t road in a month or so, but have regulary started to keep baterry charged. i took it out yesterday to ride, hard to start, acted like it running on one cyl. strong smell of unburned fuel from exhaust. ????????

Hi,

The fuel overflow is a normal reaction when you run out of fuel. The float partially got stuck in the open position allowing the fuel to fill the bowl . Being stuck, the float will not push on the closing valve to cutoff the supply, hence the overflow. A temporary workaround is to jar the float by tapping solidly on the bottom of the carb bowl where the drain screw is housed. This idea is to jar the floats to move up and close the valves.

In some instances, it is possible that dirt/sand/debris might have past trough the filtering system and block/clog or prevent the closing of the flow valve even if the floats are operating normally. These dirt/sand/debris would have been sitting peacefully at the bottom of the tank but has been agitated and made to flow with the last few fuel left.

of course, the correct action would be to dis-assemble and perform checking/cleaning of the carbs and its associated components/parts.

Just a start, do postback how things turned up or should you need additional information. Good luck and Thank you for using FixYa.