First SH disturbing discovery..
 

The basic premise of my post will be in bold if you want to skip the intro and get the jist of my question. Also I tried to find a existing post on this but am still trying to figure this forum out.

Hey guys, so I recently bought a 98 SH (my first SH and my first street bike) from my cousin after searching for one high and low. I bought it relatively cheap(1,200) as it had been laid down and he bought it from a used car dealer with the intent of making a street fighter but didn't have time. It's got ~34k and starts up great, but my cousin had it for a year or two and only ran it once the whole time, no clue it's history before he bought it, and after bringing it home I topped off the oil to let it run before an oil change and noticed a scent of gas. There's also a cloudiness in the sight glass. Now I'm hoping that maybe a needle in the carbs stuck, but it idles amazingly after choked for literally <60s but I don't really know combustion engines too well, so this is a learning experience for me. I'm going to finish changing fluids in the next few days while I wait for plastics, blinkers and mirrors to see if the scent returns, but any advice or opinions on the topic would be very much appreciated. Thank you!

Welcome.

Cloudy looking oil might just be condensation from sitting for a long time. I wouldn't be concerned unless it stays like that after the bike has had a decent hot run to vent any condensate.

Fuel smell could be a sticky carb float needle leading to an overflow and it might pay to pull the carbs out and clean the bowls, jets and float needle. The bike also has a vacuum-operated fuel tap mounted under the tank, these can and do give problems (sticking open or sticking shut) and may need a rebuild kit.

If you do pull the carbs be very gentle with the choke cables as these can break off at the carb.

Change the oil and filter then see what happens !

Also pay to pull the carbs and give a thorough clean as well as sync them.

Do an idle drop as well to make sure the mixture screws are set properly.

Are you changing the coolant and brake and clutch fluids ?

Check the air filter while you are at it !

These bikes do not like to sit, they need to be used, preferably in anger!

Let us know what happens.

So I'm picking up the rest of my fluids today and am probably going to pull my carb out while I wait for parts(running out of season and itching to ride can't jus sit and do nothing lol) and my buddy and I are planning on syncing my carbs when I get a boost joint and the a tps adjustment. We just made a rear suspension shim. I'll keep ya posted hoping all goes well. I appreciate your input guys

As suggested, do an oil and filter change. Also check the petcock for function. You really want to know if it's shutting off the fuel completely.
Close the rotary valve on the petcock, remove the fuel lines that go to the carbs and then open the rotary valve while looking for any flow of gas. Which there shouldn't be.

Hey guys I really appreciate all the input! I don't think I've taken a day off of this bike since I got it haha really loving the project as I wait for plastics and such. So I tore into the beast. Replaced the oil, black, and gassy. Ran 3-4qt of lightly used oil from my dirtbike to flush, black and less gassy. Then put new oil and filter on. Then moved towards the carb and air filter. And found a K&n airfilter. A FILTHY k&n air filter.. Heart drops as everything I've read told me I may be looking at a jet kit. And sure enough, open up the carb and see a third hole drilled into the sliders. So I'm gonna start looking for stock mains and needles/springs. Can anyone confirm what size the mains are? I found 175,178? Is that Front,Rear? My buddy (Mainehawk) tells me he's heard people mention jumping their rear jet to a 180 can anyone confirm the benefit to this? Can I use the adjustable needles that it has now with stock jets? (I assume they're dyno jets?) if so anyone have an idea what setting the should be adjusted to? Thanks for all the help guys!

These bikes are too much fun ! Glad that you found one finally... OCMD is kicking your ass right now ! Well after the let-down of finding the dreaded Dyno-jet kit the TPS adjustment was a great success tonight(503ohms!) I think you misunderstood a bit when we were talking about main jets. I was saying that sometimes people bump up to 180 mains on the rear, assuming you've also bumped up to 178 mains on the front, because if you find that you are running a tad lean up at higher rpm or wide open throttle, you'd want to richen the main circuit for both carbs equally... Hawks carb setup thread talks about being a good baseline setup and may require tweaking one way or another... So we were looking into getting 175main/48pilot fronts, 178main/48pilot rear, Find stock needles/springs and fill in holes on the slides(leaving 1 hole in front slide 2 holes in rear) Does that sound about right ?

First question anyone ought to ask where do you live, and how many feet above sea level is it? Without know this most jetting info is sketchy at best...

Located in Maine... altitude is pretty much at sea level to maybe 1,000 FT above sea level...