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Hi folks,
I havn't been out on the bike in a couple weeks. I posted here before about poor performance, just a little hesitation or dead spots in the throttle. Today I got a more obvious problem. Its stuttering and sputtering, bogging down, dogging, however you like to put it. It seems to me like a fuel problem. It is dogging out and suddenly jumps back to life. One jerky ride around the block. Tomorrow I will take a jab at the fuel filter. I'm hoping it is full of crud, I like to find obvious things wrong. If the filter is clean I'm scratching my head.
And lemme get this straight, I remove the tank and the filter is hidden in the gas line by the carbs. Can I just blow the filter clean with compressed air and put it back?
What eles might be wrong? The only other symtoms I can give is I think it takes a while to warm up, like five minutes but maybe that is normal for these bikes. And slow throttle.
The bike is a 03 BA with 11k, stock pipes and air.

Yeah you could just blow it clean,it's just a very fine screen. Have you tried cracking the gas cap when the bike bogs? You may have a clogged/pinched tank vent or a faulty tip over valve.

The 03's were one of the years when the paint in the tank filler neck flaked off. I never had a severe problem with that, but it did give me a few hiccups till I ran some Seafoam thru the fuel system.

If you eliminate fuel delivery as the problem, then you may find your slides are sticking in the carb bores. That's at least easy to check. Pull the tops of your carbs off and lift the slides out. Look for crud or scratches on them and buff them up. If that isn't the problem, then you got some clogged ports in the jets or pilot circuits.

Thanks guys I'm still working at it. I did get the filter in and out today. What a pig! I guess your supposed to remove the carbs to do it but I just dorked around with every size needle nose and dental pick. The filter had only a small amount of crud in it, one noticable black spec and maybe a little moosh. Tank paint huh? The bike is black and so was the speck. I drained the tank, the fuel looked O.K., just a little yellow with age. Havn't put it together yet. I wanted to check in here. Also I pulled a plug. It looked fine but I can't find the proper wrench and I rounded it a bit. I should get the right socket and new plugs tomarrow.
Any plugs you like better than others? I'll take what my shop gives me.
Dog, where is the tip over valve?
Thanks again guys,
ZH

on the frame behind the carbs,little plastic thing in the tank vent hose clipped to the down tube. Also if the filter was dirty you may need to clean the petcock too if you still have a problem.. Doesn't take much to clog that little hidden filter so you may have found the issue.

I have been having issues and I notice a lot of wear on the carb slides as in grooves which are at odds with the age of the bike little over 4000km.

O.K. guys heres the update. I think we're good, I just went for a 15 mile test ride with no problem.
All I did was clean the hidden filter. I took out the petcock too but it looked clean. Dunno how to tell if the tip over valve is stuck, I just blew into the vent hose for good luck. Changed plugs. Fresh gas. Its definatly quicker on the throttle than before, you may remember my post about its dogging performance, its better now. Now I'm excited to try some perfomance tricks, the BA is still tame compared to my ironhead. And gotta do somthing with them pipes! The silent engine is just plain weird to me, glad I have a tach!
Still little things to get used to. I found starting out much easier now, no stumbling on take off. But I still gotta watch out not to ride around with my turn signal on, a potenially fatal mistake in these parts. Oh and I found an exhaust leak. A little drop of water came out were the muffler joins the header and I can feel that pesky little puff-puff-puff coming out. I'll goop it up.
Thanks for the help folks.