I can't even imagine the thread we'd build up talking about a bike like my old BMW .... had TWO petcocks!

Basically the way most bike reserve systems work is, the On position takes gas from a little tube that's an inch or so from the bottom of the tank, and the Reserve position takes gas from right at the bottom.

I've seen people carry some gas (with some stabilizer you'd hope) in a little aluminum thermos looking thing for those REAL emergencies.... heck I've seen a lot of weird stuff!

 

06 883C with abt 1 gallon reserve

 

The only two times I've unintentionally run out of gas on a bike were when I didn't pay attention to the writing and arrows on the petcock handle... Boy, I felt stupid when I saw, in plain English "ON" and "RESERVE" and an arrow after switching from reserve to main...

 

Like THIS? I used to do the MSR fuel bottles...

 

That lever points down for "on" and up toward the tank for "reserve".

 

Yep, for an '02 the arm of the petcock handle should point towards the ground for ON, Up towards the tank for reserve, and level towards the fron of the bike for off.....The petcock handle should even have an arrow stamped on it so you can point it towards the words.

 

Yeah I looked at it this morning. I don't know what I was thinking when I originally looked at it. I was going from the left side of the thing, taking the reading from the left side of the switch when looking at it, reading ON, ccw to FUEL, ccw to RESERVE. I see now that the pointed end is NOT the end with the little indent mark on it which I never noticed before. I usually rotated it CW to go ON, but now I realize that is actually reserve.

Sigh, thanks guys. Now maybe I'll actually be able to use reserve instead of fearing it since I thought it was broken/useless.

Is it bad to constantly have to switch to reserve? I know its bad to run out of gas since thats when all the dirt and stuff that may be in gets into the system (I put seafoam in it when I got home yesterday). But all the reserve would do is make it sputter a for a bit and not take in any bad particles right?

 

You should be more confident that your reserve works! And if you've run it dry, there can't be that much crap built up in there....??

Maybe look for a gas station 20-30 miles earlier on the odometer?

 

Nothing wrong with hitting reserve a lot. On my carbed bike, I try to run down into reserve every third or fourth tank to keep the crud out. It's easier for the bike to handle a little bit than a lot.

 

Hey Ripto...every time you gas up you are mixing in fresh gas in the main and reserve. There is a divider in the tank that keeps the reserve the reserve once it gets down to a certain level. Do not think of it as an isolated tank. I am sure the force of filling the tank is mixing everything up anyway so I wouldn't worry about trying to keep your reserve gas fresh. Its the same gas. So when you taking that bike out to Maples or Port Jeff ?