Its EEEEEzzeee,,,  get a gas can, pop the fuel line off the carb, point it into the gas can,, I put mine up on a stool, so I dont hafta hold it. Put it on PRIME, & let er run dry,, then take the vac line off, plug it where it goes to the carb. Remove the petcock from the tank, put the Raptor in, hook the fuel line up, PUT the gas BACK in the tank,, turn the Raptor On,,, & Fire that mutha UP...

Oldfeller--FSO wrote on 06/12/11 at 11:30:19:


With a new diaphragm in there, I know it's either the vac line or I forgot to fill it again.  999 times out of 1000 it's time to fill it again.

Ah, listen to what the man said .....


(I like that old song, BTW)



He's replaced his diaphragm once already, so he is just having to replace his vac line now periodically.


So, he's still messing with it ....


.... or allowing it to mess with him.




depends on how you look at it I guess

verslagen1 wrote on 06/12/11 at 14:18:07:

Ummmm........yes?? I guess???? I honestly have no idea. It is what it is when we bought it.  We have only switched out the mirrors and added the inline filter. It had the Jardine muffler when we bought it. I know the paint was custom but I don't know if the previous owner did anything else to it.

Shoot, I never figured out where to put it.    Balloon man, myself.






Seriously, if I had to articulate my objections to the stock vac petcock in a more normal rational fashion it would go like this:

Suzuki grabbed a stock part from the Japanese motorcycle industry and used it on the Big Single.   This is the same petcock found elsewhere on Jap bikes of that same development time span ...  They used what was available.

First, the Big Single has a vacuum loss at full speed that I am not sure is reflected by in line fours and v twins.   This vacuum loss makes the stock petcock not work reliably at full speed once it gets some age on it.  The marginal vacuum situation on our bike fuels about half the known petcock issues -- rubber failures account for the rest.

Second, the petcock by itself is a source of variation and failure on the same order of magnitude as the rest of the Savage's  electrical and carburetor system combined.  At least half of the carb/electrical issues reported by newbies turn out to be (or to be aggravated by) vac petcock issues.

Yes, you can fix the petcock -- the repair methods are understood.   But why should you?

If someone had identified a BETTER GRADE of vac petcock that did not have all these line cracking, flapper stiffening, pin hole leaking issues then we would have something else to talk about.

Nobody has, instead we found the Raptor pure mechanical petcock that costs almost exactly the same thing as a vac petcock repair kit.

Now, here is food for further discussion.   We have a lot of Raptors in use now.  We really do, check here for an old poll

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1286789339


Now the vac petcock proponents keep saying somebody is gonna fill their crankcase up with gas by leaving the mechanical petcock on.  So far this hasn't been an issue yet, and indeed the lax among us haven't been turning the petcock off religiously either (got lazy).

Indeed, the vast majority of the rare "gas in the oil" episodes have involved the stock vac petcock and I will not hazard a guess as to which of the several failure modes of the vac petcock was involved in these episodes as a split/cracked diaphragm readily comes to mind but I have no direct knowledge of these episodes to convey so I'd jest be guessin'.

The Raptor mechanical has not shown any failure modes yet, it ages well and simply keeps on delivering gas reliably at all motor speeds.

The vac petcock seems to have an age effect to it that would repeat on a rebuilt unit given equivalent age.   Certainly the vac lines need periodic replacing (some do it every year as a matter of fact).


===============




Going back to normal mode, I will say that once you reach your Depp or Bobbitt point (depending on your gender) the deep satisfaction you get from bouncing the stock petcock off a brick wall repeatedly (and then shooting it a couple of times and stuffing the fragments down the barrel of a cannon to be fired far far out into the ocean) is very real and quantifiable.

IF YOU ARE SO DURN CERTAIN ABOUT REBUILT VAC PETCOCKS being such a good deal, then do an exchange rebuild service for the same price as a Raptor (give it a 10 year warranty too).    

Heck, shipping the vac petcock both ways for the rebuild service would cost as much as the Raptor does ....

evil  




PS   Carb diaphragm in the top of the carb isn't sitting in liquid gasoline and alcohol and all the fuel additives that are trying to dissolve it all the time, it only gets exposed to engine vapors on the suck side and whatever gas vapors/mists make it up past the slide going against all the venturi driven suction that is telling it to "go the other way".  

So, carb rubber lives in a relatively dry non-dissolving world but yes, given enough time the carb diaphragms fail too.   At $129 each, let's all be thankful the durn things last as long as they do !!!



  .... is this a declared petcock war,  or are we just misbehaving again?

Routy wrote on 06/13/11 at 07:04:22:





In her very first post, she said that switching to prime DID NOT fix the problem.


Wuhhhh?I missed that,,

bill67 wrote on 06/11/11 at 19:08:16:


Yes, taking that new filter off will fix it
And right, you have a tank w/ dirt in the bottom, that will go right thru the petcock screen, so you don't need no fine paper filter to take all the dirt out before it hits the carburator !