eratic running

I had a small chance this weekend to start working on my VX800, 17k on the clock but its had some very poor work or none at all during its life, initially the engine was running on the front cylinder only, I fitted new plugs and new plug caps, the rear cylinder now runs, one odd thing is that the rear exhaust pipe gets a lot hotter than the front pipe.

The bike will run for a moment and then start to run erratically untill it stops, at this point it will not start untill the fuel tap is turned off, yesterday I reached a stage where I could regulate the running of the engine by turning the fuel on and off, I am presuming that a carb/carbs are flooding, do I throughly clean them and fit a service carb kit or am I missing something ?

Sounds like the float needle could be stuck open? does petrol come of the overflow if you don't turn the tap off?... V-Twin's your man on this one, he had a bit of a fetish with vx carbs 

oddly no spillage when I leave the tap on