I have 80,88's, 96 and 103 engined softails and have consistently gotten 50 mpg over the years.

No engine work though. But of the 25 H-D's that I have had all of he gas gauges were pretty much spot on.

I by habit formed during 60 years of riding go by the trip odometer to decide when to pull in.

One of the techs at my dealer is good with pushing/pulling on the float rod to bring them in closer. You just tell him which way it needs to go to be more accurate.

 

4X4, you need a trip to Hawaii. Looks like some great traveling in your past.

 

OP. Empty your tank, put 1 gallon or whatever amount of fuel in the tank then adjust your float rod till the light comes on.

 

The stock jetting on a 42 Mikuni is fairly rich from the factory. I had one on a built 95 and still changed out the pilot jet to a size smaller and lowered the needle one position. Worth trying as your mileage sounds a tad low to me. With my 95ci bike I could get close to 50 on a good day.

 

Your mpg is low. Reaper's engine has been built up to 98ci, 10.5:1 compression, cams, head work etc... and she'll regularly get 45 - 48 mpg highway @ 75 mph, and 40 mpg city/mixed. She's got the stock CV40 carb, rejetted with a custom needle. I'm guessing that, as mentioned above, your jetting is rich.

As for the fuel gauge; I find they aren't that accurate. I use one of my trip odometers as a fuel gauge, and will usually start looking for gas at around 160 - 170 miles, unless I'm somewhere in the boonies where there is lots of distance between gas stations. In those cases I start looking around at 140 miles.

Cheers!

 

thank you for the replies. I thought it was low. I'll take it to my wrench and him check out my carb. I adjusted the float rod today and seem to have a more accurate reading now.

 

+1 agree. My float rod was off, I just bent it back where I thought it should be and it's pretty accurate now.