Another Ride, Another Push

MacMcMacmac

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Ha, no electrical this time....

Turns out, my nice shiny Omega Racer tank has less than 10km of reserve capacity. Imagine the fun of switching to reserve and thinking you have about 30km of range, and in less than 10 you are pushing your bike along a 20" paved shoulder on a fully guard railed 4 lane highway with cars zipping by at 120km/h just inches from your left elbow. Good times! Once the bike begins to stutter, you need gas, RIGHT NOW! This is really going to hamper my enjoyment of riding through the countryside at this rate. I guess I will have to modify the fuel pickup tubes in the petcock, or maybe switch the petcocks over from my other tank, but if memory serves, the boss on this tank is a lot smaller. I even had to take a file to open up the fuel delivery holes before the screen would slide through it. The workmanship on this tank leaves a bit to be desired, considering what I paid for it. The blind holes for the petcock screws were so filled with debris from the polishing process, I nearly broke a tap off cleaning them out before I realized the holes were indeed blind. That would have been a fun repair on a brand new tank.


Overall this tank has been a very underwhelming addition. Looks great, and no more worries about rusting out, but the cap has been a leaker from day one, it is nearly impossible to fill fully due to an unvented and long filler tube, and it scratches if you looks at it the wrong way. This bike may be going basic black again soon.

As an aside, it took almost exactly 12l to fill, and the trip meter said 196km. Rounding this out to 12l and 200km, we get 6l/100km, or 39mpg (US gallons). Not bad, but not great. I noticed my plugs are pretty sooty, so there is some tuning that needs doing. Where would you start to fix an overly rich condition?
 
That started me thinkig of ways to make the bowl empty more slowly so the bike stumbles longer. You could make a hole some distance down from the top of the main tube, so it gets a little gas when the top of the tube is above the gas level. BUT the size of the hole would be finicky. If you made a V-shaped cut from the top of the tube down some distance, then you have every size of hole there is, right down to no hole at the bottom of the V... I'm feeling like XSJohn...
 
If you have the adjustable needles in your BS34s, I'd start by leaning them a step. You spend most of the time running in the midrange so it will have a big effect on mileage, plug color too. Also, it's very easy to over-jet CV carbs. They work on engine demand, the slides only lifting as much as the engine can use. For that reason, the bike can still run pretty good even if the mains are too big. So, if you've gone up more than a couple sizes on the mains, that might be too much.
 
Ahh ..hh the old school pushing a stalled motorcycle along the roadside
The physical aspects of this hobby is underrated getting the exercise
Should even be a Olympic discipline
The Le Mans start is gone

I remember one time the Yamaha stopped not charging If I had matches that time i perhaps would have opened the tank lid and dropped a match down there

Please tell how far you had to push it and if there was any upward hills worth to mention .
or
Canyon deep underpasses

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That started me thinkig of ways to make the bowl empty more slowly so the bike stumbles longer. You could make a hole some distance down from the top of the main tube, so it gets a little gas when the top of the tube is above the gas level. BUT the size of the hole would be finicky. If you made a V-shaped cut from the top of the tube down some distance, then you have every size of hole there is, right down to no hole at the bottom of the V...


The main tank feeds from a standpipe. Once the level of fuel falls below the mouth of the standpipe, we get fuel starvation.... and a reminder to switch to reserve.... which is fed from an opening at the bottom of the tank. The amount of fuel remaining for reserve is dependent on the height of the standpipe opening above the tank floor.
Drilling a hole, vee.... whatever in that tube means that fuel enters the tube below the mouth. In other words, a somewhat small reserve just got even smaller.
Not sure I see the point in trying to devise a progressive warning of fuel starvation when the one we have now does a fine job of warning you..... without sacrificing reserve capacity.

I'm feeling like XSJohn...
Indeed....
 
Madness has dual petcocks and no crossover, I'd like to call it superior planning but happenstance is the truth: The left petcock has a taller reserve pipe than the right so when that time comes just the left cylinder dies. Since it's' the left I can simply reach down and swap it to reserve while keeping throttle on that last lung struggling to keep up, then once back up to speed I can switch the RH petcock to reserve also.
IIRC the standard tank petcocks have a taller reserve pipe than the specials. so a staggered set can be mix/matched.
 
Not sure I see the point in trying to devise a progressive warning of fuel starvation when the one we have now does a fine job of warning you..... without sacrificing reserve capacity.

The complaint was you have little time to get on reserve because the stumbling doesn't last long -- "Once the bike begins to stutter, you need gas, RIGHT NOW!" The V cut would lengthen the stuttering time for him.
 
The complaint was you have little time to get on reserve because the stumbling doesn't last long -- "Once the bike begins to stutter, you need gas, RIGHT NOW!" The V cut would lengthen the stuttering time for him.
No, the complaint was reserve is too small....

"Imagine the fun of switching to reserve and thinking you have about 30km of range, and in less than 10 you are pushing your...."

Where in there did you read that "RIGHT NOW" was a concern?
You didn't....'cause it wasn't.
I don't recall ever having a RIGHT NOW ....oh shit moment when it was time to switch tanks. I do recall on several occasions seeing the sign for next gas and doing a mental calculation of the odds of me making it.

Congratulations.... your "XSJohn invention" fixes (dubious) a problem "no one has".... and shrinks reserve in the process.

Well done sir.
 
I usually don't wait for the bike to hit Reserve. When the trip meter gets up to around the 100 mile mark, I'll gas up. My Standard can go another 20 to 30 miles usually, my Special, not so much, lol. It's usually very close to hitting Reserve by then. Mileage has been poor on the Special lately (barely 40) because of all the carb experimenting I've been doing. I've been draining a lot of float bowls and do try to pour most of that back into the tank, but I'm spilling and wasting some, lol. Hey, you wanna play, you gotta pay, lol.
 
I rejetted for Uni filters a few years ago and can't remember which jets I used, probably the biggest ones suggested. Everything ran well, so I figured let sleeping dogs lie, but I was thinking of taking the bike to work to save some gas and it really isn't much better mileage than my Chrysler 3.6! I'll try the needles first.

Actually, the push was about 1km, so not too bad. A nice younger lady offered to drive me to the station at the offramp, but I figured I was almost there and thanked her, but declined her offer. Then, as I rounded the turn about 10 minutes later, There she was waiting for me in a parking lot sayin, that last bit is uphill, let me take you to get a gas can. So I told her I had pushed it up much steeper hills than that and thanked her again. I think that 10km push of a 900 Seca with a half flat tire and dragging brakes gave me permanent brain damage back in 2000. Probably it was a much earlier push of a GS550E back in the 90's from 118ave to 23Ave in Edmonton. What a maroon...
 
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I once ran out in the Mojave desert and coasted to a stop under the sign that said “gas next exit”. Yup, I could see it but that don’t mean nothing in the desert.😂
Luckiky had a quart fuel bottle with me.
n
Note: my new build will use a 2 gallon tank of which I’ll only have access to about 3/4 of it……the cure? You stop for fuel every hour or you will anyways!🤬
 
I rejetted for Uni filters a few years ago and can't remember which jets I used, probably the biggest ones suggested. Everything ran well, so I figured let sleeping dogs lie, but I was thinking of taking the bike to work to save some gas and it really isn't much better mileage than my Chrysler 3.6! I'll try the needles first.

Actually, the push was about 1km, so not too bad. A nice younger lady offered to drive me to the station at the offramp, but I figured I was almost there and thanked her, but declined her offer. Then, as I rounded the turn about 10 minutes later, There she was waiting for me in a parking lot sayin, that last bit is uphill, let me take you to get a gas can. So I told her I had pushed it up much steeper hills than that and thanked her again. I think that 10km push of a 900 Seca with a half flat tire and dragging brakes gave me permanent brain damage back in 2000. Probably it was a much earlier push of a GS550E back in the 90's from 118ave to 23Ave in Edmonton. What a maroon...

Yes Sir ... do we have a winner ??

I think that 10km push of a 900 Seca with a half flat tire and dragging brakes

Forget about the fuel consumption cant be high pushing them bikes and forget about the internet dating they are sitting waiting around the corner car passenger door open ..I am no expert on that ( Either ) but if you ask me that is a signal to catch. Sensations and adventures in the real world motorcycling. There is of course unknown factors -- the wife can be one ..
 
Where in there did you read that "RIGHT NOW" was a concern?
It's a direct quote, and I put it in quotes for you to see. Are you a hissing, spitting, sputtering, exhibition of imbecility in real life, or do you just play one on here?
 
It's a direct quote, and I put it in quotes for you to see. Are you a hissing, spitting, sputtering, exhibition of imbecility in real life, or do you just play one on here?

'Cept you mischaracterized the OP's quote. Go back up and reread it.
 
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