Carburetor Leak!

[gtowsen]

A few days ago, my beloved 1500 started running on only one bank of cylinders. I deduced that one of the slow idle jets was clogged and, after removing and disassembling the carburetors, that was the case.

I cleaned up everything and reassembled the carburetors, reinstalled them, and when I fired up the motorcycle to test the repair, I noticed a major fuel leak coming from the carburetor vent T. It looks like fuel is leaking right out of the opening in the T.

I removed the carbs again and checked the floats. It looked like the needles were sticking some, despite looking flawless. The nipple on the top of both float needles is springing back as it should, and the float heights are correctly set.

After a thorough cleaning, the float needles still seemed to stick when the carbs were turned into their resting position. I can hear a very faint click when moving them with my finger, upon which they seem free.. until I turn the carbs over again and they seem to stick open again.

I reinstalled the carburetors, cranked the bike over so fuel filled the bowls, and tapped both float bowls with the plastic end of a screwdriver to hopefully free the floats.

Unfortunately, the leak persists.

Are the floats the cause of this leak? If so, what can I do to help free them up?

I attached a picture of the source of the leak. It's directly in the center of the image.

[gtowsen]

Here are two additional pictures. One shows where the leak is occuring, the other shows the carburetors removed from the frame.