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fuel valve mystery
Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 9:23 pm
by Greg Autrey
Hi,
I wanted to relate a recent problem. At the end of a long day of
on/off road riding, the bike began to die like it was out of gas. I
switched to reserve, even though I thought I had a half tank. Went
back to a gas station, checked and I did have 1/2 tank. Filled it up
any way and headed home, all freeway. Every few miles, sometimes 1
sometimes 5, it would die. I would immediately switch to reserve/or
back to main whenever it would die. Switching the petcock got it
goin again. I did this all the way home, about 80 miles (yeah, it
sucked).
At home removed fuel valve and diaphram valve, thinking it was
dirty. There was nothing in there and it looked fine. There was
some bunged up gasket material between the valve and tank, which I
removed and did not replace. Emptied the gas tank, emptied the float
bowl. Went on a 20 mile ride, all seems to be fine.
Question. Why did working the petcock back and forth allow me to
keep going for a few miles?
Greg in AZ
Green'06, fully farkleized, but room for more.
fuel valve mystery
Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 4:26 pm
by C L Cooper
Greg,
I don't know about the extra miles, but just after I bought my '01 KLR, I
had a similar problem in finding little bits of what turned out to be
deteriorating o-ring material from the petcock valve. If the o-ring is
deteriorating it will allow fuel to leak past the petcock valve. May drip on
your garage floor. Those itty bitty pieces of o-ring will also get between
the needle and seat in the carb. The result is a load of raw fuel on top of
the piston, and a crankcase full of fuel. Really a bad deal all the way
around.
I fixed mine by replacing the petcock o-rings and installing Big Cee's
vacuum diaphragm eliminator. You can get the o-rings from a couple sources
much cheaper than the local dealer - try Fred or ronayers.com.
If you have any doubts about the leaky o-rings, what a load of raw fuel on
top of a piston will do to the rod, and how much it costs to fix the
resulting problems, I can send you some pic's of the broken rod and the case
halves with the hole in the front.
Chuck C
San Diego, CA
On 1/17/07, Greg Autrey wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I wanted to relate a recent problem. At the end of a long day of
> on/off road riding, the bike began to die like it was out of gas. I
> switched to reserve, even though I thought I had a half tank. Went
> back to a gas station, checked and I did have 1/2 tank. Filled it up
> any way and headed home, all freeway. Every few miles, sometimes 1
> sometimes 5, it would die. I would immediately switch to reserve/or
> back to main whenever it would die. Switching the petcock got it
> goin again. I did this all the way home, about 80 miles (yeah, it
> sucked).
>
> At home removed fuel valve and diaphram valve, thinking it was
> dirty. There was nothing in there and it looked fine. There was
> some bunged up gasket material between the valve and tank, which I
> removed and did not replace. Emptied the gas tank, emptied the float
> bowl. Went on a 20 mile ride, all seems to be fine.
>
> Question. Why did working the petcock back and forth allow me to
> keep going for a few miles?
>
> Greg in AZ
> Green'06, fully farkleized, but room for more.
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
need a mirror
Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:35 pm
by Lamar
Anyone have a spare mirror? You can contact me off-list at
ato137528@yahoo. I'm almost finished rehabbing my A14 after the big
incident with a truck last fall and need the mirror. It was one of the
parts that went flying and was never found.
Thanks!
fuel valve mystery
Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:49 pm
by davseidman
I wanted to drain my tank. Since the fuel valve has a vacuum shut off, I thought I'd just
turn the valve to "reserve", put a hose on the vacuum port, suck on the hose to create a
negative pressure, and the fuel would come pouring out. No luck.
Any ideas on how to drain the tank without removing it?
Dave
2007 KLR650,