Carb fuel leak

[apwcu]

Having some problems with my bike. I'll start from the beginning.

Bike is a 93 FZR 600 with 12k miles. When I bought it, the bike ran great but would not idle and was running rich. I drove it like that until now and decided I was tired of keeping it running at a stop light.

I removed my carbs and cleaned them and in the process I somehow broke an ear off of one of the carbs. I found a set locally on craigslist so I bought them and cleaned them out and put them back on the bike. It start up and idles perfect and has excellent throttle response, the only problem is that it is leaking fuel from all four carbs in between the float bowls. I took them back apart and made sure the gasket wasn't broken and was clean. Same thing when I put them back on, it was leaking fairly heavily from each carb between the body and the bowl.

I was initially thinking that the needle valves weren't seating causing too much fuel in the bowls, but wouldn't that make it leak from the overflows also? I really don't want to buy a bunch of parts if I can figure out exactly whats causing the problem.

Does it matter which way you put the needle valve back on the float? Anything I could be missing?

Thanks for the help.

[M in KC]

You probably just need four new bowl gaskets. They are frail rubber o-ring type material as I'm sure you are aware. If the float height was off then your overflow would be out the overflow tubes not out between the carb base and the float bowl. Check Fox Distribution, K&L or Kester for just the bowl gaskets if you don't want to source them from your dealer. But honestly the dealer or your local shop might be the best play here.