Hey, My 98 Fatboy sat for 2yrs without being ridden at all. It was started twice a month for this period to keep it free I guess. It runs good but I can see water in the bottom of the tank floating around. I'm guessing it's from condensation. I have drained the tank by parking it facing downhill and taking the crossover hose off. There is no water visable in the right side tank, just the left. When I first start riding the last couple of times after draining the tanks and refilling, it starts to miss and acts like it is going to die. I turn the gas off and run the carb out and then turn it back on before the bike dies and stops completely. It picks back up and runs good after I do that. I believe it has a vacuam petcock and no gas will drain out if I just pull the line off and I didn't get all of the fuel out when I tried draining from the front crossover,so, any ideas? Do I need to pull the carb and check it out for water in the bowl? Do these things have filters or screens anywhere in the fuel system? I have a manual coming so I think I should wait till it gets here before I rip into him! If it would warm up outside, I would fill it up and ride till it ran out but I think I would freeze to death befor I ran out of gas! Thanks Mark

 

No need to pull the carb. Look between the cylinders from the horn side and you'll see a small brass screw there. Use a long thin screwdriver and crack it open 2 turns and it will drain the float bowl. Leave the petcock open so it will flush things out.You can do this a few times and after you ride it a few times repeat this again.

It's a good measure to do with any carbed bike periodiocally when changing oil. Anything that acumilates in the carb is right below the main jet and can cause running problems when you get enough sediment or water in there.

 

There's a vacuum hose on the petcock. Pull the fuel hose off the carb and put it in a suitable container, then apply a vacuum to the vac hose while having the petcock in the reserve position. This will empty the tank. You can get a mity vac or something simaler at just about any hardware/toolstore.

 

hey thanks guys. . . good ideas. . i'll give em a try. . didn't even think of the drain screw in the float bowl. Mark

 

A big syringe will pull a vacuum too. If you don't want to pull a vacuum on it, you can turn off petcock, loosen nut that holds it on the tank enough to spin petcock around, take out the screws holding the back plate on and remove the spring from the diapham. Put the plate back on and turn on the petcock to drain. Once the gas is all drained out, it's a good time to pull the petcock off and clean the filter.

 

Dont know why but I wasn't thinking about the whole vacuam thing properly. The vacuam pulls the diaphram and allows the fuel to flow right? I guess I was thinking it had to pump like a fuel pump! Dam, I work on this kind of stuff all the timeand just wasn't thinkin I guess. So there is a filter of some kind in the petcock? You guys got my head workin proper now. Thanks Mark

 

You might want to try a couple of bottles of dry gas in the tank also to see if that helps out. Try draining the gas into a small glass container a little at a time to see how much water is still mixed with the gas, they try the dry gas route.

 

Exactly, gotta have vac pullin on the diaphram to get fuel flowing. The only "filter" type thing is a screen on top of the petcock inlet in the tank. You can check that by removing the petcock after you drain the tank.