I'm thinking of replacing my stk petcock with a pingel. What's everyone's thought on a vacuum operated petcock vrs a full manual petcock? They say with a full manual petcock you have to turn the fuel off every time you turn the bike off. I'm considering the manual just cause the new location on the tank would look a lot cleaner vrs having the extra valve on it.

 

I have a 1990 Sportster with a stock manual petcock. I do turn it off after rides, however I've left it on as I forgot and never had any issues. If your carb needle valve is good and the accelerator pump diaphragm is good you should be fine if left on. When my pump diaphragm went bad it did leak all over the place and basically emptied the tank on my garage floor.

 

I replaced the stock vac one with the pinglel...I used to turn the vac one off after riding too so I was already in the habit. If you forget once in a while it's ok as long as your float seats properly to shut off flow. I don't shut if off every time I park, just when I park the the night.

 

My stock one never gets turned off and either did the sovelhead I had previously. Never had a problem.

 

Gas leaks into cylinder, it finds its way past the rings and into the oil. Then it reduces the ability of the oil to lubricate.

If the oil smells like fuel - it has contaminated. Absolutely does happen and completely preventable.

You won't know it happened until its too late.

 

I put a Pingel with vacuum operation on Reaper 3 years ago, and I never turn the gas off. Have had no problems whatsoever. A few times I've run the tank into the reserve, and the Pingel makes it easy to reach down and flip over to reserve without having to stop.

Cheers!

 

Non vacuum for simplicity's sake. It sucks if you need to drain your tank and you have a vacuum petcock.

 

Mity Vac on the vacuum port on the petcock gets flowing real nice.

 

Again, an unneeded complexity and additional step instead of just opening the valve to drain it. Worked great for many years.

 

Agreed, but an extra step I'm willing to take so I don't wind up with the cylinders flooded with fuel in even of a carb malfunction.