This has been a recent topic of discussion, yet it leaves me perplexed, and i think i may have thought of the solution at work, but i can't do much till i get home.
my ON switch doesn't work - never has since i've owned the bike. i took off the tank this weekend to clean the petcocks and discovered soemthing interesting. according to both the Bike Bandit diagram and my Clymers diagram, the Reserve line was actually going to the carbs, and the carb line was actually going to the reserve.
according to both diagrams, the only input at the petcock that points down (the only one on the right side as you face the dial) is the reserve line. it goes from this input to the reserve output in the tank. well this line was going from this input to the input at the carbs.
i first unplugged the "on" fuel line, and drained some fuel from the tank into a recepticle, to make sure it wasn't the line that was clogged. it flowed nicely. then i unplugged (what i thought was) the reserve line from the petcock and put it in my recepticle to drain the rest of the tank. when i turned the fuel shutoff back on, fuel started flowing from the (according to the diagram) reserve port of the petcock. i followed the lines and found that the reserve tube was connected to the carbs, and the carb line was connected to the tank's petcock.
easy solution, right? well, i switched them all to how the diagrams were, and the bike wouldn't start... but now that i think about it at work, it was on its sidestand, and i think maybe it didn't want to start cause of that? is there an auto-shutoff if the stand is down? i think that might have been my problem. anyways, i'm gonna take the tank off again tonight and futz with it. i switched it back to how it was (wrong way) and the bike fired up fine (ON still not working).
here's a pic of how it looks (wrong). you can see the bottom petcock on the left side of the pic, and follow the tubing relativly easily up to the tank, and to the carbs.
(http://www.clan-intrepid.com/perfy/cycle/DSC01549.JPG)
is this pic in-fact right? can i open up the bottom petcock and put it back together safely? or will i need some o-rings or something to put it back together.
lotta questions, and a long read. thanks in advance for your help.
You can take both petcocks apart but you have to be careful. On the tank petcock there is a clip that has the on/off for the knob on it. Carefully pry that off and then the knob can come out so that you can look down inside and see if there are any obstructions. On the petcock dowm by the airbox is a little different. There is a plate with I think 4 screws and behind this plate is a diaphragm that opens the petcock to let fuel flow into the carbs while engine vaccum is present. Long story short: You shouldnt need any o-rings or gaskets if you are extremely careful.
Good Luck
Stephen
Take a look at my recent post on the fuel system (http://www.gstwins.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=75601#75601). You may not care about some of the hoses discussed, but I think the photos and diagrams will help.
For related information, see my Fuel Hose Routing page (http://www.bbburma.net/FuelHoseRouting.htm).
Oh, and there IS an "auto-shutoff" when the sidestand is down ... IF the bike is not in Neutral. If this is the case, NOTHING will happen when you push the starter button. (Same thing if you don't have the clutch lever pulled in.)
EDIT: Changed link from sisna.com to bbburma.net
I still cant get mine right, Its too confusing, I jsut run on pri and watch my mileage, for now.
One of these days I will take it all back apart and then set it up right
perfdrug, did you ever get your fuel hoses figured out?
ya, the vaccum came undone the very first time when i tried to fix it, so that explains why it dind't work on anything but what it took to be prime. i'd definatly classify myself as a fuel hose routing expert now, since i've done it enough times.
that's the least of my worries now, unfortunatly.