need a mirror

[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.

[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]

[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!

[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,