Girl! What year is your bike and how many miles on the odometer? If your bike is old and aged, time to remove that carb and clean it throughly. Any mods have done on it?

i just went through this with debby's bike, last week. http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?board=RubberSideDown;action=display;n...
i cleaned the needle @ seat with aerosol carb cleaner and compressed air two or three times (over a period of a few frustrating days), added an in-line fuel filter, adjusted the valves, changed the oil, and all seems well now. you may have picked up some dirt from a fuel stop, and appearantly, the in-tank filter isn't adequate. i want to emphasize CHANGE THE OIL! our oil was completely diluted with gas, from the very same condition as you're experiencing. with out going into great detail and research (aside from the obvious lack of lubrication), i suspect that has something to do with the engine reverting back to a flooded condition. we did have a previous problem with old fuel varnishing circuits inside the carb, then the new fuel softened it up into a nasty ooze, but that cleaned out with aerosol carb cleaner too.

I mention this in a lot of fuel problem posts, so excuse the repetition.
An often overlooked part of the fuel system is the vacuum diaphram in the petc0ck.  Engine vacuum pulls a plug in the petc0ck allowing gas to flow down the fuel-line.  Problem is when the rubber diaphram surrounding the fuel-line plug starts to leak.  Then gas is sucked down the vac line strait into the engine.
Check that there is no gas in the vacuum line.  I had to give a little suck (don't laugh!) on the line to get gas to come out.  If there's any gas in there, that's your problem.  Took me 2 months to figure out.  Very easy to check.  
best of luck

Suzigirl wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:09:

Absolutely. The needle and seat above the float sticks and causes a flooding condition. Adding SeaFoam should unstick it. You can also rap on the side of the carb body with a screwdriver handle to help free it up.

It sounds like your fuel system still has varnish in it.

I got the carb out and the pin, float look okay, no dirt, operates okay when tapped, measurments are in line. Did notice on the big diaphram peice in the top part of the carb ( sorry, don't know all the part names yet) that it has deep rub marks only on some areas, hmmmm like it's been sticking in a couple of places. This I think moves up and down on top of the needle valve? will read further in my book on that.

I think my varnish problem may be gone. I do not see any remote suggestion that there is any goo or dirt anywhere in the fuel delivery path.  Also the vaccum line did not have gas in it nor did the crankcase.

Will check electric and coil as I ponder further....thanks for all good suggestions, I really appreciate it!

Cleaned the diaphram thing very gently and no lube. I do however think my dad and I found the issue.
After looking at the very clean carb, we got back to the fuel valve assembly on the gas tank. disassembled that diaphram, it was good but the pin inside that pushes the diaphram in and out when the fuel lever is moved was very bent to one side. It appears to have been riding in the little o ring. This would explain why the problem is intermitent. Don't know how it got bent or how long it's been like that but I do know I will get another assembly and see if that indeed solves the problem. I'm optimistic that this will work.