You hit it right on the head buddy. I am much closer to a carpenter than a mechanic; the years have taught me it is usually cheaper to just pay the man. I think I am going to have to trailer it now because of the volume of the leak. I do appreciate all the responses, even if it is still something I don't think I should try and fix.

 

Take it to a mechanic over 50. I had a young guy rebuild my Kawasaki Vulcan 750 carb, and I had to take it to a dealer to get it fixed right. And they took 3 tries.

 

Give it a try, it's really not that hard. If I can do it, anyone can!
Dropping the bowl is easy, I bet you have some some grit in there that jammed the float.
Sometimes just dropping the bowl, pushing up on the float a few times, and putting it back together will clear it up.
If the float is full of gas, you should be able to feel it, the float will feel too heavy.

 

That's what I said, even if you dropped the float bowl so the float hung under it's own weight then cracked the petcock it would flush itself.
Or like Ragtop said, check if the float has gas in it. Then the float is bad.

 

If you can fix a toilet , you can fix a carb. they are quite similar. If not then don't.

 

Not quite, but thanks for playing. I've done carburetor rebuilds on every car I've owned that had one. So I'm a bit familiar. At least a half dozen over the decades. But I digress.......................

My post was from the perspective of the OP, who by his own admission clearly doesn't want to or feel confident doing this work.

If he's hesitant to remove the float bowl, I suspect he'd be even more hesitant to remove the entire carb.

Easy for those who know how, possibly daunting for those who don't.

 

^^ Yep, this. Motorcycle carbs are really pretty simple.

 

It's 34 years old. Eventually everything will need repairing at some point. If yours is the Old Mikuni Carb, it would be worth looking at a 40MM CV that was on the later bikes. There are tons of them on Ebay for $100 +/-.
If you can not or are not interested in trying to do it yourself, take it to a good shop. The money spent with them is often far less than trying to do it yourself.

 

If not mechanically inclined and already thinking you don't want to mess with it I would not talk you into messing with it. The brass screws can go fubar. Don't ask me how I know. Ha ha ha. I do miss my Mikuni on my old Wide Glide.

 

I didn't either until I did it. But I'm cheap or thrifty depends on your point of view.
I can't see paying someone for something I can possibly do myself.
At least I'll make a attempt, If I'm going to pay someone it's going to fix something I broke.