I've got a 2001 Road king that this weekend I ran out of gas, it's carbed so I had a reserve and it started up and got me to a station. Now it backfires on a regular basis. Anyone else have this problem?

 

..sounds like you picked up a little debris in the tank when it got that low. Couple of things you could try without taking the carb apart to clean it. Change out your inline fuel filter, and while you are doing that, send a little blast of compressed air into the fuel line to blow out the carb, never know...

 

You might try cleaning the petcock screen. May have sediment from bottom of tank.

 

I am going to pull out the screen. One more thing, it seems to run better on reserve than on on.

 

I agree with what's being said here....its the same for cars/trucks. Shouldn't let them get down that low because its sucking up the bad crap from the bottom of the tank. You're lucky you have carbs and not EFI. Clean out the line/filter/screen and see where you're at

 

After cleaning all of the above run a little Seafoam in your gas..

 

It ran fine till it ran out of gas? I'd check the screen and put some Seafoam as Captain Itch suggested and run it. You might have got some bad gas.

 

2 things.
First if it is backfiring you will need to check that the carb is still seated properly to the intake. It just pushes onto the big black rubber ring and back firing will cause it to become unseated, and yes even with the air filter and its bracketry connected. Second the pet **** is controlled by vacuum. If the engine is not running the fuel will not flow. Check the vacuuum line on the back of the pet **** and where it attaches to the intake manifold.

And i would go ahead and clean up the petcock and the associated screens and line. Next would be to drop the carb bowl and clean it up. I would not blow air into the carb thru the fuel line....you take a chance on too much air putting pressure on the Needle and possibly bending the float where it contacts the needle and thus allow the bowl to overflow.

 

Thanks for all the input. I'm going to start the cleaning process.

 

Came close to running out of gas myself Easter weekend. Was forced to buy reg unleaded from an old gas station. Some AMSOIL Quickshot and two tanks of the good premium and the bike is running fine.