I have been having some trouble getting my bike started. While looking the carburetor over, I noticed the bottom of the rubber carburetor boot was leaking a little bit of oil residue on the bottom. After removing the carburetor and rubber manifold, #1 the previous owner installed boyesen reeds #2 they seem to be a little warped and not completely closing all the way. So my questions would be, is this problematic? and could this be contributing to the hard starting? Also can I bend/repair the reeds, or just buy new ones. And if buying new ones is the solution should I find a original set on eBay or get another set of boyesen? I attached a couple photos but it's hard to see.
Thanks
Tom

Hmmm. possibility but only possibly as on a 400 she'd have plenty of oomph to blow them shut on the down stroke. But--i did have an extreme case of 'that on a YZ80 in about 1980 or earlier where i was running methanol fuel in the kids bike & both reeds curled up [way up] as didn't like the fuel. Happened on a race day--& threw me into panic mode a bit. Found hand choking it made it start so went looking then flipped the reeds over in the end once i could see what was going on, which fixed it for the remainder of the day [we were push starting it until then on 'that' day]. fitted the steel original's back in after that. So for 'you' there's only one way to prove that -- with originals--or turn over what you have & see how it goes.

You can't bend those to fix them. They are probably okay. Boyesen's do that all the time.

Many, many people swear by them... I've used them and am not one of the fans. But again, that little warp is probably not your issue.

The dripping was probably an air leak... almost all reed manifolds seem to leak... very common place. Air leak could definitely cause hard starting.

Speaking of YZ85's, my "Super DT50" is using a YZ85 engine and brand new... I mean factory new... had quite an air leak at the manifold. Non-hardening Yamabond works great sealing reed manifolds.