I tried salvaging the float for probably 5 hours but whoever worked on it before me-I've only had the bike for about a month- really mangled it up.
It's twisted so badly that I think the metal is stretched slightly.
Also, I did check all the vents and they are all flowing freely. When I was testing it the other day, I ran it without vent tubes - but that shouldn't matter, should it?
To avoid buying a float level gauge I rigged up an old spark plug boot and a clear hose. It was a minor pain in the ass since the main jet sits in the bottom of the drain plug. I ran the hose up the side of the carb hoping that physics would hold and I could get an idea of where float valve was actually shutting off.
Anyhow, I hooked it up and filled up the carb through the gas intake and the level seemed to consistently stop right around the mating surface of the bowl and carb body. I decided that was a bit high so lowered the float until the level in the hose stopped at about 3mm below the top of the bowl.
I figured if anything this was maybe too low and the motor would starve, but when I ran the bike for a few minutes and then stopped it, a near steady stream of gas came out the carb overflow until i turned off the gas petcock.
After I adjusted the float using my makeshift gauge, I looked at it to see how close to parallel the floats were to the bowl surface - and it appeared the the floats were set way too low.
Any and all suggestions are welcome. Thanks for all the replies so far. If anybody knows where the fluid level should stop with my makeshift level gauge please help me out.