Ran out of gas today, Reserve wasn't there for me.

[AyeKay]

Well I ran out of gas today on the 215....

Started sputtering about a mile away from a shell station.

Opened the tank on the side of the road to see its empty, switched to pri and reserve to get it going again off of fumes and lil gas left over and it barely started died a few times and I got to the light and had to walk to the bike the rest of the way to the station....

Where did my reserve go?

[blwnbwtie]

i had the same problem when i had my 89 GS, i checked the fuel hose routing atleast 5 times, still cant figure out why that was happening.

[AyeKay]

Is the PRI Vacuum fed

And ON Gravity fed

If so PRI would run your reserve dry and ON would go until it choked on the reserve giving you a chance to switch over?

[blwnbwtie]

PRI should be gravity fed, and ON is vaccum, im not sure whether RES is gravity or vaccum though.

[the mole]

In that stuation I would leave it on prime for a while to make sure the carbs are full (the reserve pickup probably hasn't been used for a while and may be clogged up and slow to feed) and maybe even run it on prime, as that doesn't need the vacuum to operate. I think the prime setting gives a bit less flow, but if you are not thrashing the bike it won't matter. It maybe time topull the petcock in the tank and check the filter, also check correct hose routing between there and the main petcock. Its in the manual.

[DoD#i]

Could be your hoses are wrong. Lots of opportunity for that with all the hoses there are. Allow me to describe my setup as it was when I tore it apart.

Main (tank) connected to outlet (frame)
Reserve(tank) connected to main (frame)
Reserve (frame) connected to inlet (carbs)

So it would only run on reserve or prime, and there was no way it could have drawn from the "reserve" gas.

Look at the diagrams on the wiki, and pay attention to the one that says "this is drawn backwards", which is no doubt where part of this comes from, along with just too many hoses for some people to figure out. If, say, someone looked at that diagram (without the added red note) and hooked up the reserve feed to the Main inlet, you'd be out of gas when Main ran dry.

My tank petcock was also installed backwards (almost impossible to turn it off).

The tank petcock has an R on one outlet and an M or O on the other. The R outlet goes to the right angle inlet on the frame petcock, furthest from the tank. The main tank outlet goes to the frame inlet closest to the outside of the bike. The frame outlet to the carbs is behind and parallel to the main inlet. <edit - 89-00 only, per gsjack's post below>

Speaking of tank petcock - how are the screws supposed to be sealed? They are inside (on the gasoline side of) the o-ring, and don't appear to have any seal. Was not leaking before I took it apart, but I can't see why it would not have been leaking - I think it should have something to seal those when I put it back together (RSN).

[gsJack]

There are three different pictures of the frame mounted fuel selector switch hose connections depending on model year, the fuel shutoff on the tank was pictured backwards in the 89-02 parts fiches:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/jcp8832/89-00fuelcock.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/jcp8832/01-02fuelcock.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/jcp8832/04-06fuelcock.jpg

[pkhoff]

Speaking of tank petcock - how are the screws supposed to be sealed? They are inside (on the gasoline side of) the o-ring, and don't appear to have any seal. Was not leaking before I took it apart, but I can't see why it would not have been leaking - I think it should have something to seal those when I put it back together (RSN).

On my tank petcock there are washers under the attachment screws that are either rubber or fiber covered.

[arbakken]

another tip is to tip the bike to the left as far as you can without dropping it... causes fuel to slosh onto the side with the pickup. Usually good for a mile or two