[alanmcorcoran]

You want to have an idle above 1000 rpms, but not much above that. The idle screw is a white plastic dial you'll find down around your ankle. It's a good idea to mark where it's set before you start moving it, and stick to no more than quarter turns until you get a feel for what you are doing. I recommend you kind of work it back and forth a little as you turn it so there's no unreleased tension left in the cable pulleys. It's not a real sophisticated control and, like a piano, it can drift a bit when you are "tuning" it.

Frankly, I suggest you hold off mucking with the idle until you make some progress on getting the bike to run (unless it is idling very slowly and roughly.) Let me explain why - GZ's don't really get running well until they are warmed up and, in my experience, this takes at least ten minutes. You don't want to mess with the idle when it is not warmed up - you'll probably set it too high. On the flip side, it's easy to set the idle too low after it's warmed up. You definitely don't want to mess with the idle when the choke is on. Others have posted about devices that can act as pseudo-tachometers. I think most of us can tell by the sound. It should be relatively quiet at idle but not so slow you can hear it "chugging." Some have said that it should idle higher than a car. I'm not sure about that - depends on the car I guess.

Don't leave the petcock on prime. I think that's been said many times. That will led to flooding and fouling of the carb. I've left my bike sitting sometimes for six weeks or more and I still haven't had to use the "prime" setting at all to get it started, never mind leaving it in that position. I have often had to leave it running in the garage for ten minutes to stabilize the carburation after a lengthy layoff.

The carb is very sensitive on the GZ and it doesn't like to sit unused. On the plus side, often a hundred and fifty miles of fresh gas (with, perhaps, some carb cleaner) will often fix it right up. Don't sweat it if it continues to run like crap for the first 60-100 miles.

If you get it running again, leave the choke on, at least enough to keep it going, and let it run for twenty minutes (open your garage door!) before you try to ride it. If it's still stalling after that, I recommend you take it to a dealer or a service shop.

I suspect it just hasn't been ridden for a long time and, as someone suggested above, it's clogged up.

I suppose this is obvious, but in case it isn't: riding a bike with stalling and running issues greatly increases your odds of getting into trouble - both roadside breakdown trouble (trust me, you don't want to push 300 pounds uphill wearing MC gear) as well as accident trouble. Running trouble is a huge distraction and will suck up your brainpower, the brainpower that should be watching out for road hazards, wet leaves, oblivious drivers, deer, etc. I'm just saying, I know it costs money to get the bike serviced, but it will cost you a lot more if you lose the use of your leg cause you were screwing with the choke/throttle/idle when you should have been watching out for the guy making a left in front of you.

Good luck, let us know how you make out.