Different gas tanks?

[TopCatGr58]

I'm so thankful for all of the information I've been given! As for the stuck pilot jet, I have MAP gas that I can use (it's extremely hot, so I'll use it sparingly) and I will use more liquid wrench and try to see if a quick snap will loosen it up. At that point, I will NOT be putting it back in :P. I'll probably go shopping for a different screw driver that fits in there a lot better too.

Hey again,

Yeah, MAP is quite hot, remember aluminum starts to melt around 600 degrees, and is quite soft at even 400 degrees. I know some heat guns can get up to 1000 degrees...but we're only suggesting a few hundred degrees at most...and the heat gun is less of a fire hazard than an open flame source, especially when there could still be some gasoline/fuel around the carb.

T.C.

[Xarik]

Hey again,

Yeah, MAP is quite hot, remember aluminum starts to melt around 600 degrees, and is quite soft at even 400 degrees. I know some heat guns can get up to 1000 degrees...but we're only suggesting a few hundred degrees at most...and the heat gun is less of a fire hazard than an open flame source, especially when there could still be some gasoline/fuel around the carb.

T.C.

AHAHA! I totally wasn't even thinking about the fumes :P. Thank you for putting some sense in my mind ;P.

Well, here's a quick update: The day after I put the carbs back on the bike and turned it over, I went down to the structure to pull off the battery charger because the battery was full. There was no sign of anything being amiss. When I come back from work, there is a huge puddle of gas flowing from the bike to under my car and the entire parking structure wreaks of gas...the dumb thing randomly started leaking even though I didn't touch it, but it was fine before I took the battery charger off lol. Thankfully I had pulled the battery charger or that could have easily set off the gas that was all over the ground.

this chain of events lead to my landlady telling me I'm not allowed to work on anything in the parking structure ever again...thankfully I live in a building where over 80% of the individuals living here are over 55 years old, so absolutely NO ONE will be down there past 10pm haha. That means that I'll be working on it in the wee hours of the night from here on out.


If someone can help me understand why it's leaking, that'd be awesome. It appears to all be coming from the point where all of the hoses off of the petcocks meet. They all go towards a block of some sort and that goes out to one tube and it's coming from the point where they all meet. (see the picture where the huge arrow is). I wish I had a better picture, but yeah...Keep in mind, the image is obviously BEFORE I put the carbs back in, so everything is where it should be, but it seems that gravity is giving the fuel the energy to leak out somewhere around there :/....are there diagrams for where hoses shoudl go from the petcocks?

Thanks!

example shot by Lane Schwartz, on Flickr

[dbeardslee]

The thing the red arrow is pointed at is the octy. It has a diaphram in it that's vacuum operated, and under vacuum it supposed to make the fuel flow. I don't have one on Betsy, and I took the vacuum operated petcocks off her and replaced them with manual petcocks 'cause those old vacuum operated jobs can be a PITA. My guess is that your petcocks have issues, but I'll let someone with a special weigh in on that.

Here's the way the plumping is supposed to run -

[dbeardslee]

thankfully I live in a building where over 80% of the individuals living here are over 55 years old, so absolutely NO ONE will be down there past 10pm haha.

I'll be 56 in about two weeks. And I'm usually still up when you youngsters are heading off to bed. We wait for you to do stuff in the wee hours so we can catch you at it.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Xarik,

Yep, as DB stated, the separate valve assembly is the Octopus. Many members just remove it, then the plumbing is simpler. The front nipple of each petcock is the PRIME which was used to bypass the Octy to fill the carbs without engine vacuum. It's not needed, the petcocks will gravity flow from the ON or Reserve setting out of the REAR spigot of the petcock. So cap off the front one. OR you can run both into a "T" or "Y" fitting first, and then run the single line out across the engine to the other side/pair of carbs, in other words...right petcock feeds left pair, left petcock feeds right pair. This allows more room to put INLINE filter between petcocks and carbs.

But as stated....both the Octy if faulty...and IF the petcocks were in the OFF position...then they are faulty also because they are leaking. You can get rebuild kits for the petcocks...they often come with the parts needed to rebuild the Octy as well....YOUR CHOICE. The Octy is supposed to protect the engine from possible fuel contamination IF the petocks leak...but the carbs float needle valves ALSO have to leak to cause the fuel to eventually flood the carbs and leak upwards and then forwards into the intakes, past valves and piston rings down into the oil!

Others who have removed the Octy have put extra fuel shut off valve INLINE with the filters, so that IF the petcocks fail....the extra shut off valve will still provide the leak protection. Your Choice.

T.C.

PS, I'm 57 and stay up to 11:30 pm every weekday night, and up to 1 or 2 am on weekends!

[dbeardslee]

PS, I'm 57 and stay up to 11:30 pm every weekday night, and up to 1 or 2 am on weekends!

Or to put it another way...

[dbeardslee]

Here's a little tip for you. Get yourself a bag of kitty litter. It's very absorbent, and it works well for cleaning up stuff like oil spills. Probably work for gas spills too, but I wouldn't leave it sitting around after it had absorbed gasoline. I'd take it out and spread it someplace - like on a gravel road. I also keep some big pieces of cardboard in the mancave, and I always put it under my vehicles when I'm working on them. It's pretty doggone absorbent too, and it helps capture anything that drips off the motor and keeps the floor cleaner. JAT