So I bike it in to work last week, coming home I get off the truway, sputter to a stop with just enough downhill to roll into a gas station. Pull up to the pumps, check my tank and see a bit of gas sloshing around the bottom. Figure I can make it the 4.5miles home. Off I go, make it half mile and sputter out into an abandoned lot, what I thought was reserve was actually off :) Now the engine floods and takes a good ten minutes to get going again, 2 miles from the house and it dies again. Even with gas visible in the bottom of the tank it wont turn over. Dude across the street form where I stalled gave me a gallon from his garage.
Why would it die like that with gas in the tank??
Well you need to make sure the hoses are routed right, and you select the "reserve" with the petcock. Even running through the reserve, however, there is typically like 0.4 gal of fuel that can not be emptied by the stock tank petcock.
The GS tank has a flat bottom, a very poor design. Just because you saw gas does not mean there is enough to exit.
plus it is gravity def. aka no fuel pump, so what you saw may not have had enough gravity or pressure to be forced into the carbs
Have you checked the petcock for the no vacuum operation mod?If it's modified to not use the vacuum operation then the ON/RES/PRI changes.On is On/Res is off/Pri is Res.Check this out.
The above statements I have found to be true.Flat bottom tank doesn't keep the fuel close to the petcock.So the weight of the fuel becomes distributed instead of pushing the fuel thru to the carbs.
I always try to fill up after about 150 miles max, and mostly sooner. I don't trust the tank to deliver gas at low volume and I want to keep the "crap" in the "pockets". Especially now that the bike has been rejetted and has a 14t c/s sprocket, so I'm assuming my mileage has gone down some too.
150 between fill ups is about what I'm getting. never considered that what little was in the bottom of the tank couldnt make it trough.