Petrol Tap

[Fraggle]

This is going to sound like I have special needs....

Can someone review the attached pic and tell me if the petrol is on or on reserve.

Just run out of fuel - switched to reserve & nothing. Look in the tank and it's nearly dry. Second time this has happened using different positions...

[Barry]

It's on.

Reserve is straight up.

Long (normal) and Short (reserve) straws inside the tank may be in wrong positions or even missing.

Once you have run out on reserve there is still at least a litre on the right hand side of the tank which you can access by tipping the bike over on it's left side or by lifting the tank off with the fuel pipe still connected and tipping that on it's side  - much easier on the back.


Fraggle,

Before anyone else mentions it. Pictures should usually be re-sized before posting to something like 640 x 480.  Besides being easier to view it will load much quicker and take up perhaps on 1/10th of the space on the forum Server.

[Fraggle]

thanks for the reply

sorry about the picture - having a bit of a senior moment when I wanted to get the detail of the tap on the pic...

Understand about the mechanics of the tap - but the original question still stands - is it on or on reserve in the position shown?

[georgesgiralt]

It is "on".
But you may get reserve no matter what position it is because :
1) the tube into the tank had been cut off
2) the disc inside the tap has been tampered with or badly mounted
So I second the advice telling you to dismantle it and check.

[Matt Chapter]

I'll also add that you may have a kink there.  It's hard to tell from the photo, especially regarding the third dimension, but it's preferable to have smooth curves in your fuel line, not drastic direction changes.

Now that I look a second time.. it appears that the line between the petcock and the T connector is too long, and has an upward curve.  Gravity - it's the law!

Get some left to right sloshing, and it'd be tough to know if you needed reserve or not.

Third edit: looks ok in big form. So as long the direction of fuel flow is unequivocally downwards you should be fine.  You don't say if you have duel petcocks or not, though..

[k_enn]

Like Barry said, check the "straws" inside the tank.  I once had my tank replaced (by a dealer, no less) and the straw for the main draw was not hooked up right, so I was always drawing from the bottom of the tank.  I was not a happy camper when I ran out of gas on the highway (I used to refill only after I had flipped to reserve).  

[Luca]

If your bike will run on reserve with a full tank of gas, chances are the main straw has been cut down.  If it won't run at all on reserve at all it's probably clogged.  The screen is downstream of the valve on that tap.

IIRC, the Germa taps have pressed in brass tubes.  They won't pull out like the plastic ones on the Karcoma tap.

[Bob_Roller]

Don't know if the bike is new to you, but you need to keep track of the distance traveled since last fill up .

I rarely use the reserve position, I know I can go to around 200 miles when I get the fuel level low enough to be close to needing to switch to the reserve position .

Here in the southwestern US fuel stations can be few and far between, if you don't plan your route ahead of time, you can find yourself on reserve and still have too far of a distance to travel, before you run out of fuel .

[Ed Miller]

Yesterday I hit reserve right at 200 miles, and then went another 20 before I got to town and a gas station.  It took a hair over 5 gallons to fill it back up, so I could probably have made it another 20 miles easily.  But stressfully.

[Barry]

Just to be awkward I do the whole thing in reverse.  

I run to reserve and note the mileage knowing I have 29 or 30 miles left before needing the extra emergency supply on the right hand side of the tank which i've had to resort to 2 or 3 times in 6 years.

Then I fill a fixed amount of say 15 Litres. which will get me over 200 miles and run to reserve again.  I think it's a more accurate measure of fuel consumption than topping off the tank.

[georgesgiralt]

The solution is to put a two liter can filled with petrol on the saddlebag and drive 'til you run out of fuel. Then, you will know wht distance you can safely go when on reserve.
I had an Hinckley Triumph (T3 Legend, wonderful bike) which was said to have a 19 litre + 2 litre reserve tank and on some publications a 22 litre plus 2 litre reserve and on the user manual a 19 litre tank into which there was a 2 litre reserve...
I used the method above to ascertain that the tank was actually 20 litre with an extra 2 litre reserve and that I was able to run around 300 km with one full tank. It made subsequent travel much less stressful...
But YMMV

[Luca]

I aso hit right around 200 before I hit reserve before the mile counter crapped out... haven't done a proper consumption test since I fixed the odo/trip meter... but on the 150 mile "test run" I did the other day it seemed like the thing was hitting close to 50mpg.  Mostly around 50-60mph on the backroads, with some 80-85 mph sustained speeds on the highway.  Odometer was checked on a measured mile and speedo bench tested against the odometer.

To improve the accuracy of my fuel consumption calculation, I filled the tank before I left at a particular pump about a mile from my house.  At the end of my run, I filled my tank at the exact same pump, with the bike in the exact same postion (sidestand centered in the small oil stain near the joint in the concrete slabs).  Close enough for jazz, though Barry's method seems pretty exact provided the bike is ridden the same way on the refill as it was the first time.

[tvrla]

I just fill mine to the two little holes in the screw up top for the cap. I can usually expect 220 to 230 miles before reserve. This bike is awesome - even with a couple trips of 80mph for 30 miles on the last tank, it took 4.1 gallons in 201 miles!

Anyway, to answer the question - Down is on. Up is reserve, and to the right or left is off.

In the picture, as has already been stated, the petcock is in the ON position.

If you were running with the lever up from the last fill up, it would run through all the fuel including the reserve supply. There would be no fuel left in reserve.

[Matt Chapter]

Ok, all you guys with 200+ miles to a tank.. what am I doing wrong? I consistently get 35 mpg, have to fill up around 170 miles.

The bike runs well, my usage is half city streets and half parking lot / highway (i.e. rush hour).

[Bob_Roller]

You explained it in your post, city driving and stop and go traffic or slow traffic on urban expressways .

The engine is running but you are not moving any appreciable distance during that time .

Sitting still, is '0' miles to the gallon .

I have 1.5 miles surface streets, then urban expressway, 65 mph, with my work schedule, I leave the house between 0330 and 0515 and leave work at 1230 to 1430, so I miss 'rush hour' .