Triumphrat

markbvt · 04-22-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by tooblekain

Now that I know the first sign of running out of fuel, I do have a question for you all: Can I flip the fuel switch from ON to RESERVE while I'm riding or do I have to pull over, turn off the bike, flip the switch and fire it up?

Welcome to the old school.

In time you'll get completely used to reaching down with your left hand and flipping the petcock to reserve while riding. In fact, you'll be able to feel when the carb bowls are beginning to run dry and switch to reserve before the fuel even runs out completely.

Turning the petcock off when parking is a good idea, not only because this will ensure that you switch to on next time you ride instead of inadvertently leaving it on reserve, but also because you never know when a float valve in one of the carbs might stick open and result in fuel spilled all over the floor and into your airbox and intake manifold (not a common occurrence, but it can happen).

As for only getting 85 miles before switching to reserve, I've heard that a number of times on new bikes. Apparently fuel efficiency increases significantly as the engine breaks in. And a lot of it has to do with riding style and air/fuel mixture. By the way, you'll also find that your mileage will be far worse if you spend a tankful riding around in city/suburban traffic than it will be out on the open road. When my Bonneville was stock, I'd get about 35mpg in town and 50 riding around the countryside. After putting on free-flowing exhaust and intake, I get about 30 in town and 45 on the open road.

--mark

JohnD · 04-22-2008

Failure to do so will cause a rift in the space/time continuum,open a wormhole,and catapult the Earth into another dimension.Or at least cause erectile dysfunction.

That's very funny CommandoRdster

That such a relatively simple task generates so many posts, may illustrate our paranoia over being stranded along the side of the road. I do not have a Triumph twin, but a former Road Star and Royal Star worked the same way. I routinely changed to reserve on the fly to extend my cruising range and always placed in OFF to avoid the rare occurance of flooding the carbs. Only sometimes I would forget to put back to "ON" and have to change over a couple minutes later - again on the fly

My Daytona 1200 has a vacume controlled fuel tap which shuts off the fuel supply when the engine is stopped in the ON or RES position. So there is no need to ever touch it unless you need to use the reserve gas.

NawlinsBonnie · 04-22-2008

Hello.

This is my first post here after many months of taking advice. I have an '07 Black that has about 4500 miles. I have changed the exhaust to South Bay Dominator Touring cans. The carb was re-jetted by my dealer, whom I do trust. Other mods were changing to M bars and barend mirrors a brown 68 seat, Lucas style tail light and turn signals as well as an ABS cockpit fairing.

After the addition of the Dominators and re-jetting, my milage riding from New Orleans to Daytona was 40-44 MPG, depending on speed. On the way home, the milage began to drop. The last fill up was 33MPG.

This past week my wife and I rode to Birmingham for the Superbike races at Barber. I was getting a consistant 28 MPG while her cafe Sportster was getting 45-50 mpg! On the way home I went on reserve at 96 miles. At 108 the tank ran dry. Being an old school rider, I tilted the bike to the left, managed to get it started and rode about a half mile and filled the tank. By the way, Deb never had to switch to reserve with her small tank. This bike is also mildly modified with SE air filter, re-jetted for the black 2-1 Supertrapp, same bars and mirrors with a Storz flat tracker seat, rear sets to come soon.

My dealer made a call to Triumph who gave him a few reasons for the lowering milage. 1) clogged air filter, 2) fouled plugs, 3) need hotter plugs and TA-DA 4) incorrect carb float levels. Another suggestion was summer additives to fuel. I guess this would make our Sportster increase milage.

Do any of these reasons make any sense?

Elmon

geolpilot · 04-22-2008

I have had 7 motorcycles and two scooters. Every motorcycle had a petcock with reserve. I was surprised to find that some don't.

robert yancey · 05-14-2008

Were you on such a steep decent that the gas was all up at the front away from the petcock ? They use to have to back model T fords up hills if they were low on fuel.The tank was behind the engine and it was gravity feed fuel delivery.

justbrian · 05-15-2008

Unless the Bonnie's petcock/tank setup is very different from other types of bikes, there aren't separate "main" and "reserve" parts of the tank. On most bikes the "ON" position simply takes in fuel from higher in the tank, and when you switch to "RESERVE" you're allowing the petcock to take fuel from lower in the tank.

Pretty much the only reason you have the "ON" and "RESERVE" position is so you KNOW when you're running low on fuel before you run out. If you forget to turn your bike back to the "ON" position after filling your not going to "run out the reserve". If you leave it in the "RESERVE" position however, your not going to know when you're running low. If you're in the habit of turning your petcock to "OFF" when parking this won't be a problem unless you put on 140-150+ miles straight (running through an entire tankful).

Turning the petcock to the "OFF" position when parking is a good practice because it can save your butt if you have a leaky fuel system or one of flooding due to a stuck or improperly adjusted floats - though my (and others', from what I've read) stock petcock seems to leek like a sieve anyway. I can run the float bowls dry and if I leave her for a day with the petcock "OFF" she'll still start right up.

Some bikes have also been known to have inconsistencies in the distance between the two holes or length of the tube. This could be part of the reason why some are hitting reserve so much earlier/later than others. When I last hit reserve my bike took 2.9 gallons of fuel, for example, four miles down the road (negligible) - meaning if Triumph's quoted fuel capacity is correct, I still had 1.5 gallons of fuel in my tank (just over 1/3 of a tank) after hitting reserve.

Regarding "old fuel" being left in a tank - if you put "new fuel" in on top of "old fuel" after the first few "sloshes" you're going to just have a tank full of "slightly less than new fuel".

This is of course assuming I'm right about the Bonnie tank being a single reservoir tank.

mikeinva · 05-15-2008

the tank has a long pick up tube with a screen on it thats the tube gas goes through when in on pos. then theres a short screen for the res. I think the reason many of us get more miles before hitting res. is do to the bottom of the long screen being stopped up somewhat.I took mine out and it had some trash on it.There is allso another filter in the fuel line near the tee its very small.