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SuzukiSavage.com
/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting problem? /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1337396822 Message started by bojangals43 on 05/18/12 at 20:07:02 |
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Title: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting problem? Post by bojangals43 on 05/18/12 at 20:07:02 Hey guys! I love the info and wisdom you've shared here! I've learned a lot reading the posts. I have a a problem I'm hoping you can help me with. I have an 02' savage (with the cam-chain already modified ;)). I'bought it last month and have LOVED commuting to work every day(60 miles round trip). It starts up every morning w/o a problem... that is until a few days ago. I started it up while the fuel-tap was on "on" but it idled really low until finally dying. It did this a few times until I switched to "reserve" (though it was full of gas) and it ran like normal. It has done fine everyday unless i leave the fuel tap in the "on" position when I park it overnight. Maybe this is a coincidense but today when I parked it at last- I opened the fuel cap and it gave me the infamous "swoosh". Could my gas cap just have a vent clogged or is this the time to switch to the "raptor" fuel-tap? Any help is greatly appreciated! |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by verslagen1 on 05/18/12 at 20:52:18 if it's inhaling when you open it up, the vent must be clogged. cali bikes are vented thru a carbon canister to the carb |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by Serowbot on 05/18/12 at 22:13:42 Mixed symptoms here... "Phsst"... when you open cap, says clogged vent. Working on reserve, says on position fuel tap of the petcock is blocked.. If you're not a Cali model... try blowing into the keyhole of the gas cap (off the bike.. :-?),.. squirt some carb cleaner in there... If that don't fix it... I'd pull the petcock, disassemble and clean... |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by bojangals43 on 05/19/12 at 09:51:36 It's funny, but I only popped that gas cap off because my first bike was notorious for having a cap venting problem (96 vulcan 800). I actually just drilled the vent holes in it larger to correct the problem. It's nice out today so I'm gonna check the cap - Do you think it's a bad idea to attempt the same fix and just drill larger vent holes :-/? I want to try one thing at a time to definitivly figure it out what the problem is. She's my commuter so I'd hate to get stranded during the work week so if the cap doesn't do it then I guess I'll look into the petcock. :) |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by bojangals43 on 05/19/12 at 15:25:09 So I took the gas cap apart and cleaned it a bit. It seemed to have a little bit of crap in it. I went ahead and widened the original vent holes in the cap and put it all back together. Then went for a ride to fill her up and and warm up the engine. When I parked it I checked to see if the tank was holding another vacuum and all seemed good! The real test will be if when I start it up tomorrow while in the "on" position if it was just a coincidence that it ran better in reserve this last week... :-? I'll send another update when I check tomorrow. Thanks again for the help! :) |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by bojangals43 on 05/20/12 at 15:54:00 Well, so far so good! I went for a quick ride today and didn't have any issues with venting or when I started her up ;D. If I have any issues this week I'll let you guys know but all seems good. Thanks again for the advice! |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by Routy on 05/21/12 at 06:34:12 If you take on the mindset of most here,.... mostly Oldfeller, and have no apprecieation for the advantages/benefits/saftey factor of the vacuum controlled petcock, you could just "Raptorize" now, and never have to think about the petcock again,.......untill you forget to turn it off, and your float valve sticks, and fills your crancase w/ gasoline, or you ever go down, and have a whole tank of gas running around your beaten battered body,.......and thats before (God forbid) the fire ! :o |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by Oldfeller on 05/21/12 at 08:24:09 What Routy says above is true -- I would recommend taking off the vac petcock on any bike that shows "carb issues" or fuel supply issues and replacing it with a Raptor petcock. list of issues is here http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1251932429/1 Why? You cannot separate the 5 known failure modes of the stock vac petcock from other carb/fuel supply issues that your bike may have and it makes it VERY DIFFICULT to troubleshoot your issues when you have vac petcock issues in the mix clouding up the water so to speak. Most bikes show immediate improvements from the Raptor installation as it immediately removes ALL vac petcock effects. The remaining true issues with other systems, carb, tank cap, etc. are easily identified and fixed then. But in this case, I am glad it was correctly identified as a plugged cap vent and you fixed it with minimal trouble. The following information can be found in this thread suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1337217774/15#15 =========== 10130F02100B5354630 wrote:
+1 Splash07 speaking: Had the same symptoms and sure enough it was the petcock. letting too much gas down the vac line and overflowing oil out the crankcase breather. [/quote] ============ OF speaking: I guess you are saying it overfilled your crankcase by adding such a volume of gasoline to the sump the oil/gas mix was blowing out the top breather tube down to the air box ??? Wow -- please tell me this didn't happen for real !!! :o :o :o Molotov cocktail, just needed a backfire spark ..... Routy wants very much for this not to be the case, as do I =========== Splash07 speaking: No, not down the air box, no air box, so it blew gas oil mix out the crankcase breather filter just under the tank and all over me and the rear tire while going down the highway at about 45 mph. Not exactly safe. ========== OF speaking: So, you are telling us that a bad stock vac petcock was dumping enough gasoline down the vac tube to overfill your sump to the point that gas/oil mix was coming out the top blow by tube and spraying flammable gas/oil mix on your legs and lower body? You do realize that a carb backfire or a road tossed rock making a spark could have turned you into a localized version of The Burning Man ???? Routy, I am sorry. I wanted him to say no too. But he didn't. You have defended the stock vac petcock all along and you have always said (as you did above) that the basis for your staunch defence was safety related and you predicted that the Raptor would eventually cause some sort of float/sticking event that put gasoline into a sump. It is ironic that the "burning man" scenario that you feared has finally happened, but it was the stock vacuum actuated petcock that did it using one of the most popular of the 5 known vac petcock failure modes to do it. :-? |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by Boule’tard on 05/21/12 at 08:45:34 Well SOMEbody just got burned :D Thankfully not literally. Maybe Splash07 oughtta change his handle to SplashOgas ;D Congrats on not getting hurt.. |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by Serowbot on 05/21/12 at 08:51:33 Routy,.. OF is right... A vac petcock is a good idea, with a bad execution... It is designed as a double safety for the fuel system, but,... it has a higher failure rate than the system itself... It causes the problem more often than prevents it... In the situation OF just described.... with a vac petcock,... what could you do?... Turn to Prime?.. Reserve?.. leave it on On?... makes no difference... Fuel with still be spewing out... With a Raptor,... turn petcock to Off... Fuel is stopped... Then you can pull over,.. and find the problem... Without fuel still spewing... With the stock petcock,.. even when you get pulled over,.. the fuel is still pouring down... How do you stop it?... Quickly,.. pull the vac and fuel lines,... and hope you can find something to block those lines on the side of the road.. Then try to fix the problem, on the side of the road... Which in this case, requires defeating the vacuum petcock... because it is the problem... The vac petcock will stop a leak in your driveway... or perhaps if your bike falls over, but only on the left side... It creates an unstoppable fuel leak on the road at 50mph... (I had the same thing happen the first week I had my Savage)... How in the world is that safe?... :-?... |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by Oldfeller on 05/21/12 at 08:51:49 Boule, I sure am glad to see you. You scared the pee hummie out of me when you got all quiet on us ..... |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by NHthumper on 05/21/12 at 09:17:56 Interesting thread-- and very timely for me. I just finished assembling my '02-- Sporty muffler, Lancer jets, cone air filter,carb spring mod, smaller battery in airbox, fatboy bars, custom saddle (I'll post photos later). Started right up but ran only at idle-- and only with choke about 7/8 closed above idle. I left stabilized fuel in the tank while it was off all winter and had no problems with fuel flow last fall. Am I, too, likely to be among the accursed vacuum petcock victime? How would you troubleshoot? Thanks |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by Serowbot on 05/21/12 at 09:22:56 4244786479617C697E0C0 wrote:
Sorry NH,... you've made too many changes, all at once for any guessing... .. but , here is the test to rule out a petcock problem... Test your Petcock,.. don't just turn it to Prime.. (http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1251932429/1) Do this test,.. and post results in a new thread... we can go on from there... ;)... |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by bojangals43 on 05/22/12 at 11:04:53 Well now I'm just irritated >:(. I started her up this morning and she was acting up again. I'm gonna just have to test the petcock but my thought is that it is very slowly letting gas through overnight. I will say; this only happens after I have filled up and left it overnight... This couldn't be a problem could it? I'm going to test it but I think I may just have to order the "raptor" to help corner the problem. She rides great but obviously just lets too much gas through some nights-making the morning startup maddening. Hoses seem fine too. After looking into them, I know once I order the "raptor" it'll take almost a week to get to me which sucks :(. Thanks again for listening to me vent again :D |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by Boule’tard on 05/22/12 at 20:30:43 020F0A010E07010C135453600 wrote:
If you suspect it is flooding out overnight, definitely pull the vacuum line off the petcock and see if it smells like gas.. it should not. I think that is part of Serowbot's procedure. Also check for "extra" oil in your crankcase, as in, make sure some gas didn't seep in there through the vac line and dilute it. Those would be the most critical things to check, and thankfully easy. |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by Oldfeller on 05/22/12 at 20:49:31 Now that Splash07 has given Routy his much feared gas-oil filled sump, can we now recommend installing a Raptor as a pre-emptive performance/safety strike? Based on removing all sorts of confusing mixed "trouble" signals and also on preserving one's tender parts from a bad case of gas rash? Heaven forbid adding a road spark from a tossed rock or a backfire (and we know the Savage NEVER backfires, right?) Now this bike looks more like a gas-oil overfilled sump exploding out the rubber huff tube from internal crank churn pressure, or else the gas-oil mix got too hot and hit a gas vapor flash point and boiled up making a big big pressure spike that blew the oil cooler line open ..... and being a modern bike it very likely had a stock vac petcock on it with a vac tube and all. Notice it didn't blow the engine because it kept on running while it burned. Luckily the rider wasn't on board at the time or he'd have been seated front row center at a real weenie roast. Note in the later shots how the rubber huff tube/oil cooler hose is still dribbling fire ..... (hey, dorks like this really shouldn't be allowed to own a motorcycle) And remember, don't knock the bike over whatever the bleep you do or the main mass of oil-gas will spill out and make the fire much much worse. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5RcTrZEFKs[/media] |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by bojangals43 on 05/23/12 at 04:46:38 Definitly! Just because I can be a little OCD, I'm gonna order the "raptor" by the end of this week so I can at least feel better about diagnosing. Though I'm begining to think my bike just doesn't have enough vacuum at the petcock in general because today (while in "reserve" overnight) she started up just fine :-?..... talk about a fickle lady. I'm more tired of me telling my wife "I know what the problem is...", then just to be made a fool of by the bike :-[. "Help me, help you" is what I keep telling her every morning when I start her up ;D |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by Savage_Rob on 05/23/12 at 07:10:13 I have to agree with the sentiment that the vacuum petcock is a poor execution of a noble idea. I personally think the likelihood of dumping fuel into your crankcase is greater with the vacuum petcock because it can occur straight through the vacuum line while the engine is running, as well as when it's shut off. I have the Raptor installed and usually remember to turn it off. Even when I forget, my float valve usually keeps me from having any mess. The one time fuel got past both, it came out of my carb's vent tubes and did not flow to the engine. I should point out that I use an Amal Mk2 carb instead of the stock Mikuni and that I loop the vent tubes up and then point them back down (I bought longer tubing) instead of tucking them into the frame. In short, I got a small puddle of fuel that alerted me to my sticking float and that I'd forgotten to shut off my petcock. |
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Title: Re: Not sure if it's the petcock or a venting prob Post by bojangals43 on 06/04/12 at 10:51:13 Well I figured I give you all an update... I replaced my stock petcock with the "raptor" and it has preformed flawlessly so far. Thank you to all who responded and gave me advice, it is much appreciated :). I have even filled the bike up to the tank's neck and she starts/idles just fine :D |
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