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Display Mesage #97447


The Fuel Petcock Thing...
Written by dave_hiett on 9/30/2010 at 04:08 am

OK I've been reading all these posts about changing out the mysterious fuel
petcock the last several years. Most seem to develop a fuel leak of some kind
that triggers the need to do this. My reason is a little different.

On the way to the finger lakes tour in NY, Happy Dog suddenly quit on a long
uphill pull coming out of the Hudson River valley going up into the Adirondacks.
One cylinder, then the other. Like my old BMW R-75 when it went on reserve. I
pulled over, waited a few minutes, then she fired right up. But then a couple of
more times that day, and then a dozen times later in the trip (though thankfully
not on the tour itself) she did the same thing. Fuel filter? Bad gas? Kill
switch issue? And as I returned to Missouri, she started running really rough at
idle and MPG sank like a rock from mid 50's to low 30's. Something was up. The
Dog's tail was not wagging, she was not happy.

I gave the dog a little rest and rode mostly the GL1500, finally taking her in
this week to the vet (my trusty mechanic). It was the fuel petcock. The
diaphram inside had actually torn, and gas was being drawn by the vacuum hose
into the rear cylinder, fouling the plugs. Explained a lot.

Needless to say, I now have the brass T and Happy Dog is back wagging her tail.

Now there was something good that came of this story. While my PC was mostly
parked, the big old GL1500 (Lucy) became my 'errand bike' and I became much more
confident and competent at handling her in tight situations and traffic. When I
finally got it back today, the PC felt light as a bicycle.

And that's my story. Wish I'd done the 'T' preemptively a long time ago.

Dave Hiett '90 PC800 'Happy Dog' '94 GL1500 'Lucy'

Message Thread for message #97447