Gas leak...no clue why

[Klavdy]

I'll be honest...I'm really new to the site and have no idea who Randy is...lol

That's O.K mate, I have no idea who is randy,,,

[andyb]

new member, 1st post, go easy.
my 84 would produce a 4" puddle via one of the carb overflow tubes every night.
found problem wasn't needle or seat. the problem was the o-ring seal between the seat and the carb body.
replaced all 4 and not a drip!

Extremely common.  Also they're frequently a right bastard to get the seats out, as well.  On my FJ, I had the same issue with those rather than the seal at the needle tip itself.

If you want new orings, the slow one himself says:

Needle seat o-rings.  Stock is 7mm ID by 1.5mm X-section, but I use a slightly larger 7.1mm ID by 1.6mm X-section

[jmt476]

Well...the verdict is in. A simple case of idiot owner.haha I totally forgot to re-connect the fuel line to the pump...when I was asked about the fuel lines I forgot about that one.lol BUT it runs. Unfortunately still kind of cruddy. I feel like it's better though. It still takes forever to warm up (nothing new) but it kind of starts to sputter out when I give it gas but when I give it a lot of gas it acts better. It still backfires and i actually saw flames come out of the muffler once. I took it up the road and again it started off sputtering and then all of a sudden it ran PERFECTLY. More power than i've ever felt from it. That lasted for all of about 3 seconds and then started bogging down again. It went back and forth like that the whole time. All I can think of is that just cleaning the bowls and jets wasn't enough. I guess I'll need to have the carbs completely torn down and cleaned. Thoughts?

[RichBaker]

You are correct.... the only way to get these clean is to use compressed air to blow all the crud out. Blow thru all the passages in the carb body. Blow thru all the jets.
Carbs are one of the reasons I bought a compressor.....

[SlowOldGuy]

All I can think of is that just cleaning the bowls and jets wasn't enough. I guess I'll need to have the carbs completely torn down and cleaned. Thoughts?

The idle circuits are still dirty.  The stumbling you're experiencing sounds a lot like lean idle mixture.  That circuit goes all the way to the mixture screw.  If all you did was clean out the jets and float bowl, you probably missed crud somewhere else in the circuit. 

Best advice is to start over, fully disassemble and clean everything.

DavidR.