Suzuki 2 Strokes

The exhaust baffle on my 72 GT550J recently came loose and worked its way down the exhaust pipe towards the engine. It appears that the metal piece(s?) inside the pipe that held the baffle in place has broken. The nut/bolt that was attached to the baffle has disappeared as well, however I'm not too worried about finding replacements for those.

After this happened, the bike stopped running. I pulled the carbs apart, gave them a good cleaning, and I've also pulled the baffle out of the pipe with the help of a coat hanger.

The bike will start now, but either dies right away, or I can get it to run for a few minutes, but at a very high idle - anywhere from 2-3k. If I can get it to settle down some by adjusting the choke more towards run, it won't idle down any lower than 1500 RPM. When I've gotten it to do that, as soon as I put it into 1st gear, it will die.

I've set the air and idle screws and float heights on the carbs to factory settings according to the Clymer. Beyond that, and after trying to minimally adjusting those things, I'm don't know what else to do.

My questions are:

Did the baffle have anything to do with causing the bike to not want to start originally due to a change in back pressure, or this a coincidence?
Is there a way to repair the pipe so that it will hold the baffle in place, or do I need to find a donor bike?
Now that I can get the bike to start, does this seem like I simply need to get the carbs dialed in properly? I've not replaced any of the guts of the carbs except for a float.
Seeing as it's impossible to find a 72 GT550 carb kit that has the correct parts, what harm would happen if I bought a 74-77 carb kit? Would it just take more tweaking to adjust for larger jets, or am I missing something altogether on why that would be a bad idea?
Am I asking the right questions? If not, please tell me so I can learn more.

Thanks for your help. I'm still new to motorcycles, and I've really enjoyed learning on this forum.

Thanks,
Derek

I'm not 100 percent positive, but I would think that if the baffle is missing it might be running lean on that cylinder. I think I'd pull the spark plugs to check thier color and start there.

Thanks for the reply. I pulled the carbs again, and as it turns out, I had my floats set WAY too high. It's running pretty good now.

Any help with answers to some of the other questions in my original post is greatly appreciated (by anyone - not directing that to bert0848).