Bike just died

[Cjnut]

I hope that I could finally get some help with this tiring issue with my '92 Vulcan 500. I live in north Jersey yet I enjoy riding almost all yaer. I bought my bike to re-introduce myself to riding after my divorce.
Anyway, I bought the bike two years ago and it ran great. I put about 6000 miles on it that first year. This past spring (2013) it felt like it was losing power so I rebuilt the carbs. It ran great for a few hundred miles then it slowly started losing power, with harder starts and longer warm-up times until, I just couldn't get it started antmore. I took it in and had the carbs rebuilt again, It ran great and then, once again started losing power, etc. I took it to another shop and same thing again. I recently took it to someone who said they specialize in carburated engines. He said he cleaned the jets, and rebuilt the carbs again. I trailered it home and tried to start it (still on the trailer, just in case) and it starts and runs great until I close the choke. Then it idles like it is about to die and with a little blip of the throttle it dies. I've played with the fuel adjustment screws a little but still the same. I'm going to bring it back this week but I was wondering if anyone else had any advice or similar issues.

[Dino]

Did you ever do a valve adjustment on the bike?

[Cjnut]

No. I didn't.

[Triangles]

DO YOUR VALVE CHECK/ADJUST FIRST! Another thing could be your gas petcock going bad starving the carbs of gas. Try putting it in prime (PRI) this setting bypasses the vacuum shut off and will ensure you have gas in the carbs. There is very little in the carbs that are likely to, and/or can go out of adjustment. The idle and low speed passages are small and can plug easily. Which should only happen if you let it sit for a long time. I suppose if your tank is rusty bits of rust could be plugging up the passageways in your carb. Not something I would recommend, but I have heard of people with rusty tanks thoroughly washing the gas tank out then putting BB's in the gas tank, taping it up inside a comforter and tumbling it in the dryer with no heat. In theory the BB's "scrub" off all the rust.

[Cjnut]

Alright, I'll give it a shot. Thanks