Triumphrat

saphena

So I ran my tank dry yesterday, at 170 miles, and had to coast, paddle and push Sheila nearly two miles to the petrol station.

24C and 70% humidity meant that I also had to take a shower and change my clothes shortly after.

I filled the tank to the brim - 14.5 litres (3.8 US gals) - what happened to the rest?

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Bob - not dead yet
Switch to reserve ~130 miles, fuel panic ~170

Tbirdnz

You're getting 15km/litre, not good. The bike is running ok ? Are you running rich, plugs ok ?

If everything looks ok remeasure.

Let's know how you get on.


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Ride on !

propforward

170 per 3.8 us gallons is 44 mpg, which is quite normal consumption for a Bonneville - I think you're allright.

But pay attention to your odo!

Of course, i realise that you are deliberately running out of fuel out of scientific interest and curiousity, to benefit the rest of us with data on how far our Bonnies can go without refueling.

EDIT: "the rest" is still in there - there's that dead spot in the Bonnie tanks that can't get to the fuel tap. There should really be a second fuel tap or the should have shaped the underside of the tank to allow all the fuel to get over. Sometimes when you're in that bone dry situation, if you slosh the bike around you can get some of that dead space fuel over to avoid walking quite so far.

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If you ever drop your keys in molten lava, forget about them, because man, they're gone.

road_dog

Due to the lower section of the tank being divided, the remaining 1/2 gallon (approx) was in the right half of the tank... isolated from the petcock.

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Phil (road dog)

Geimer

One of these days I'll have to look carefully at the tank on my 'new' Bonneville to see if the place where the petcock is reinforced or if there is any other difference from the right side. It might be worthwhile adding a petcock to the right side for that last half gallon of 'reserve-reserve'. I've never run out having used the trip odo every fill up but I could see where one of the forum members might like to have installed this when they are in the middle of nowhere sometime. There is of course the 'lean the bike over real far to the left' trick to move that gas to the left side of the tank
My 1977 Bonneville had two petcocks, the reserve was on the opposite side of the tank. In fact when you really opened the throttle at high speed you had to open both of them at once to prevent a bit of fuel starvation... (No wonder I kept blowing that thing up )

TattooedRedHead

When that little yellow / orangeish light that comes on telling you that you should get gas, it might be a good idea to get gas.

Just teasing you.

Seriously though the sloshing idea is great, a second petcock is even a better idea provided you have a machinist carefully tap into the other side of the tank.

--Kory

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"I'd rather be riding my motorcycle thinking about God than sitting in church thinking about my motorcycle"
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propforward

We Bonnie riders don't need those high falutin' yellow gas pump lights.

Um.

Or maybe we do?

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If you ever drop your keys in molten lava, forget about them, because man, they're gone.

Geimer

I'm not close to my machine right now but I'll look closely tonight and re-post. Adding a second petcock might be difficult. Just drilling tapping a hole through the thin tank metal would just ruin the tank. I suspect that there is a nut or something of that nature welded into a hole in the tank that the petcock screws into and would thus provide a good seal and would secure the petcock.
Welding anything onto the tank puts it out of bounds for me... I don't feel like re-finishing the tank. If a petcock had a long enough thread AND one could get a nut started onto it from inside the tank it would work (with crush washers on the inside and outside beneath the nuts). Wow it would be difficult to start a nut from the inside of the tank though.
Anyway I'm just wasting time speculating. I'll look tonight and re-post.

jimballard

A simple solution might be, if it's possible, to use a small hand bulb type siphon to transfer the fuel from one side to the other. As I said, if it's possible to get it down to where it needs to be. Or, a small suction device, similar to a syringe, that has a small hose on the end of it It'd take a few minutes to do the transfer, but you wouldn't need a shower and a change after you're done (unless, of course, you cover yourself with spilled fuel). It would be easy enough to carry something like this on a bike, and a lot cheaper than messing with the tank.

"Of course, that's just my opinion...I could be wrong!" (Dennis Miller): Jim

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Jim Ballard

The older I get, the faster I was....until lately!! (Speed IS the fountain of youth)!

cgrossarth

How do you spell RESERVE???

I seem to remember a (choke) Japanese motorcycle

in my past which had a neoprene hose running from

one side of the tank bottom to the other under the

frame backbone. This assured that when you were

out of gas, you were REALLY out of gas.

Clyde