How long has this bike been idle,have you got,have you put fresh petrol in it,
if it's been idle for a long time you will probably need to strip and clean the carbs.

It's been idle for about a year I think
It had a little petrol in there, but I've put some more in since, I should have drained the old stuff out really.

I will drain the tank and put some new petrol, then remove carb unit and start cleaning,

I wanted to spray the carb cleaner into the air intake as suggested in some forums just to see if it starts.
Has anyone done this, what's the best approach to this, just to check if it's fuel or electrics

Can you tell I'm getting desperate to get on this Bike.

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are you getting any signs of life at all (coughs and splutters?)

these bikes can be a right pain in the arse to get going...

first of all have you tested the plugs see if your getting a spark.

If so full choke no throttle at all, crank the bike for 5 - 10 secs and see if you get anything, dont give it any gas till its ticking over.

if not wait a couple of mins for fuel to trickle through and try again. It should go.

If your still not getting any life undo one of the drain screws on the carb float bowls (no need to remove anything) and you should get some petrol come out (which means its flowing into the carbs) as the tank is vaccumn operated and sometimes this fails.

let me know how you get on and i'll see what else i can do :)

Cleaned all connectors, removed spark plugs, cleaned, re-gapped and put back.
The front 2 are real bastards - skint knuckles, looks like I've been bare knuckle boxing.

I took some pics again when the fuel tank was removed.
I was wondering if this bike has had the vaccum mod that I've heard about as it looks different to some pics I've seen on the NET

The last 2 pics are views from the underside of the fuel tank. There is only 1 fuel tube that connects here, the other connection is a short rubber tube that is closed at the end.

The second pic shows another tube that has a screw inserted into the end (right hand side of pic), so this has been disconnected for some reason.

I was told by the chap that I bought it from that it was running fine before he put it in storage for the year, so I take it this is some kind of mod - is this correct?

The pipe thats blocked off is the vacum pipe for the fuel tap.

What i would do is, like neo said, unscrew the screw in the bottom of the fuel bowl and see if you have fuel.

If you have then the tap mod has been done, if you havent then you need to reconnect that pipe.

I undid all the drain screws to check for fuel and all 4 carbs and all ok.

The only thing that concerns me is I put a bit of petrol in the tank previously when I tried to start and now the tank doesn't appear to be heavy enough.

My concern is that the fuel is flowing directly into the engine.
Should I check the oil for a petrol/oil mixture and if this is the case , would this be due to the vacuum mod or something not working correctly to to stop this constant flow of fuel.
Or is it a matter of turning fuel on when in use and off when I stop the engine.

If I need to reconnect the vacuum pipe, what else do i need to do to put it back to the standard vacuum operated fuel flow(something needs changing on the diaphragm under the fuel tank I think, not sure)

If your getting fuel to the carbs i wouldnt worry too much about the fuel tap mod. at present.

When you took the plugs out did you check for a spark?

If your fuels disappearing and its not on the floor then like you think it might be in the engine.

The carbs use the standard float device and a little pin to shut off the fuel when their full. If these go then the carbs usually just over-flow out of the overflow pipe.

Sounds like somethings not right.

To check if the taps been moded, take the tank off and turn the fuel to 'on'

If it comes gushing out the tank its been modded as even if its set to on it won't come out if the vaccumn switch hasn't been bypassed.

The mod has definately been done.
Just by switching the fuel to on, the petrol flows freely out of the tank.

I drained the oil last night and there was contamination from fuel.
I will put in new oil just to try and start the bike. I'll remember to turn the fuel off when I leave it.

As far as I have read, the fuel tap has now been modified, so in order for me to get this bike back to the standard vacuum setup, do I need to buy a new fuel tap and are these still available?

I will check for spark tonight, there is fuel to the carbs, if some fuel gets into the engine while I attempt to get it runnning, will it be a problem?

If it still doesn't start, I suppose the next step is to remove the carbs and clean thoroughly. I did try and remove the other day, removed air filter assembly then there is the 8 screws next - 5 of them came off ok, 3 are stuck.
I have sprayed plenty of WD40 and left in the hope they will budge now, if not I might need to get some more powerful releasing fluid for these.

I'll check the floats and the pins, to see if all ok - is it easy enough to open the carbs for inspection and cleaning. Is there anything I shouldn't do before I jump in and make a mess

I will get it started

It depends how the tap has been modified.

If you take it apart theres a little rubber diaphram that moves in and out.

I've seen them blocked off by somone 'sucking' the diagphram open and plugging the pipe, which to reverse you just reconnect the origianl pipe.

Another way is to remove the spring etc.

A new taps going to cost £100+ if you can get one.

If fuels getting into the engine somethings not right so I wouldn't just leave it the way it is and turn the fuel to 'off' when your not using the bike.. thats a bad idea.

Check your carbs. Have you stripped them down yet?

Check the float heigts and make sure the float valve is sealing to shut the fuel off when they are full.