Special Petcock Mod

[neJeff]

I'll keep my eyes on them. Going to need to rebuild at least one petcock this winter as one left a nice little puddle on my concrete last night. Clymer's has a nice exploded view of it and says to renew the 0-rings but I don't see any o-rings mentioned. Figure it out later I guess...

[crazy steve]

Steve, Did the de-octy this morning and although I had to re-route twice to get flow going its working fine...I did however goof something up as it only gets gas on primary.

You've got the carb feeds connected to the wrong outlet on the petcock, use the rear outlets, not the front. 'Prime' will work, but you'll have no reserve and when you're out of gas, you're completely out...

Should have caught that...

[neJeff]

Your right, should have caught it and now that I know I should have switched them but I was too damn excited to get it on the road after syncing last night!

[crazy steve]

I should have caught it...

[DGXSER]

If you never turn the petcocks to prime, that tube will never have anything in it to leak. If you used the vinyl for your fuel lines to the carbs, I use lawn mower fuel line on mine and never had any trouble.

[neJeff]

Last month I replaced the gas line on my push mower...they sold me the vinyl. Said it works fines, just replace every two years. My brother in law always uses vacuum line for all his gas lines (he's certified H-D mechanic) and says it works fine....who knows, not me. Where can you find fuel line that is slender like on these XS's and not the thick wall crap they sell at the auto stores?

[cywelchjr]

I just use the Lawn mower stuff. It works great, better than the junk they sell at the auto parts store. Well, some of it, cause most of them around here carry the same lawnmower stuff that the hardware stores do, they just carry it all year. I get the yellow stuff, I like how it looks.

[Woof]

Where can you find fuel line that is slender like on these XS's and not the thick wall crap they sell at the auto stores?

You may want to try gray Tygon fuel line, its very flexible and I don't believe hose clamps are necessary if 3/8" is used. The cycle shop where I purchased mine didn't carry anything smaller so I used 1/4" with zip ties.

[justinc1081]

did this mod but had a question

I for some reason have 2 right side petcocks on my fuel tank, not a big deal as i just hook up the lines the right way on each side.
However i had the screw closing off the ON position so that i could use Prime as my ON and On became another off. Doing it this way i did lose reserve as others have mentioned. Switching the screw around however enables the Reserve function but now ON does not want to flow, maybe i am reading this wrong but without the octy is the normal ON or down position supposed to flow fuel or does it need the vaccum of the engine to suck the fuel out of it?
I wanted the reserve function but if the only way is to lose it then i will just switch the screws around internally again.
Thanks!

[jetmechmarty]

I for some reason have 2 right side petcocks on my fuel tank, not a big deal as i just hook up the lines the right way on each side.
However i had the screw closing off the ON position so that i could use Prime as my ON and On became another off. Doing it this way i did lose reserve as others have mentioned. Switching the screw around however enables the Reserve function but now ON does not want to flow, maybe i am reading this wrong but without the octy is the normal ON or down position supposed to flow fuel or does it need the vacuum of the engine to suck the fuel out of it?
I wanted the reserve function but if the only way is to lose it then i will just switch the screws around internally again.
Thanks!

I am assuming you have a stock Special tank and modified the stock petcocks. No vacuum is required to operate the Special petcocks. The vacuum shutoff is a separate valve commonly referred to here as "octopus". Under normal operation, fuel flows when PRI, ON, or RES is selected. On to of the fuel cock assy. is a net filter covering two intakes. Selection of ON selects the higher portion of the net. Selecting RES allows fuel to flow from the bottom of the tank. Selecting PRI causes fuel to flow from the opposite outlet as the one fuel flows from when ON or RES is selected. If the vacuum shutoff isn't on your bike and you won't install one, don't concern yourself with it. Clear as mud?

[justinc1081]

haha yea i think so, yes i have the special tank with special petcocks.
I believe my issue was that of not having enough fuel in the tank when i was playing around with it. Added some more fuel and now it flows while in ON and Reserve. Some days you are your own worst enemy

[DiverRay]

Owning both Standard and Special, I do NOT try and work on the special unless I have about 1/2 tank. You cannot get them to tune properly with too low a fuel level. I do use a remote fuel tank for most of my work, so it's just the "final" idle adjustment that I usually run into problems.