If you haven't been running a fuel stabilizer such as Sta-Bil full-time in your GL1000 you will almost surely encounter sluggishness and unresponsiveness, and a rough idle, symptoms of partially resined-up idle jets. The good news is that there is a way on the GL1000 to clear the idle jet without removing the carburetors from the engine. The automotive origin of these carburetors offers us a unique external opening to the idle curcuit that is easy to access. Very fortunate and taking advantage of it works well. But it works best on a bike that is at least running on all four cylinders, though roughly. This method can't resurrect a long-hibernating machine.

Remove the four short rubber hoses that join the carburetors to the air chamber. Also remove the pilot (idle mixture) screw from each carburetor along with its spring. The pilot screw is beneath the throttle shaft. Get a can of Walmart's Super Tech brake aerosol cleaner. Sand a taper on one end of the red spray hose. Jam this hose into the brass elbow exposed when you removed the rubber hoses. Blast away. Wear eye protection and rubber gloves, and have rags on the engine and bodywork to protect their finishes from overspray. Do this in the brass elbow on the side of each carb in turn. Afterward, stick the red spray hose into each of the cavities the pilot screws came out of and blast those also. Put everything back together, adjust the pilot screws to 3 turns out, and drain all four float bowls. And don't forget to put fresh fuel in the tank. You should see an immediate improvement in idle and slow speed engine performance.

Beware -- don't try this on the GL1100 carburetor set! Different carbs! Unlike the GL1000 which has just one air cut valve mounted far from the carburetor, the GL1100 has four such valves, one attached to each carburetor casting. Thus they are extremely vulnerable and will be damaged by any chemicals introduced to the idle circuit without first removing each valve.