Fule Shutoff Vavle

[jgalle]

I am new to motorcycles and all. But are there suppose to be 2 Fuel Shutoff Valves?
I noticed one of mine was on, and the other was on reserve...
I turned them both to on, but I am waiting for my exhaust to come in, so I can put it back on (Other one fell off, literally)(Bad braising job for small hole by previous owner)

[oldfart]

fuel shutoff

Yes there is suppose to be two shutoffs on your bike.they are vacume opperated,thats why there is no "off" setting.turn them both to "on" or both to "reserve" The prime is not to be used unless you have completely ran the carbs dry(drained float bowls or ran out of gas when on reserve)after engine starts take it OFF prime and to "on".....hope this helps

[johnstewart]

Re: fuel shutoff

Originally posted by oldfart
Yes there is suppose to be two shutoffs on your bike.they are vacume opperated,thats why there is no "off" setting.

Really??

Hmmm... just bought a 79 XS1100 Special, and unlike my 79 XS750 Special, it *does* have an OFF (also PRIME, ON, and RESERVE).

Is this perhaps a new petcock put on by the previous owner? I'd just assumed the 1100's were different.

[Jean Luc]

My 82 XJ has an off position as well. I make it a point to set the handles to OFF when parking for more than 1 hr.

As a side note, how low does the tank get before you are reaching for the reserve? I always get gas at ~100 miles, and usually take on ~3 gls.

[jgalle]

I am pretty sure mine has four settings. On, Off, Pri, and Res.
I did not know that there were 2 though. Does it matter if 1 is on, and 1 os in res? That was how it was when I got it. I set them both to on, but I am missing an exhaust until monday, so I can not go for a ride to tell the difference.

[johnstewart]

Well, it's not going to hurt anything, but you probably do want them both set to the same thing so they run out at approximately the same time.

My understanding is that the reserve setting just pulls the gas from a lower part of the tank, so when it starts to run out on the on position, you can switch to reserve and get a little more gas.

Not sure how the PRI setting acts differently than ON and RES.

However, at least with the 750 petcocks, they have a reputation for not working well.

I know on my old XS750SF, the only time I actually started running out of fuel (on a freeway in town), I thought it would be no problem, I just switched to reserve. Bzzt. It died just the same.

Fortunately, it happenned right before an exit, which went downhill, which happenned to have a gas station right there, so I just coasted into it.

Now I'm much more attentive of the mileage on my trip odometer. I always got gas at about 100mi.

I'm not sure yet where I need to do that for my XS1100. Seems like it burns gas at quite a faster rate. =)