Art Webb wrote on 11/20/15 at 11:47:09:


The important thing is not to mess around. I put my stock petcock in a ziplok bag, filled the bag with epoxy resin and let it harden, wrapped the bag in 3 layers of duct tape, tied it to a brick, then took it to the dam at our nearby lake and dropped the whole thing over the dam into the deepest part of the lake. At midnight. When no one was around.

So far, no further problems with that petcock, and the Raptor is working great.  

You know, I have thought a fair bit about that OEM vacuum petcock. It's way more complicated than a simple off/on/reserve valve, and why? One reason. So you don't have to remember to turn the gas on and off. In return, you get a system that impersonates every type of carburetor problem when it begins to fail, causing endless confusion about what is wrong with the bike and money and effort spent fiddling with things that aren't broken. It's almost like the designers thought, hey, let's put this infernal thing on there and it will look like we are doing the owner a favor when in fact we are generating a huge amount of parts and maintenance income for the dealers. Let's design it to go bad in 4 or 5 years and let's make the part expensive to boot!

No, Art and me are nice guys, we're just teaching a new Savage owner how to think about that steenkin' stock petcock.  

Sonny wrote on 12/01/15 at 23:23:49:


Just about every new motorcycle has an automatic petcock or a fuel pump, these days......another part of the system that makes your life convenient, and safe.  The kick stand safety, clutch safety and automatic petcock are there so you don't have to think "too much", and protect you if you do happen to stop thinking for a moment.

Those safety devices probably helps a lot of new riders - for most of us old folks we already have the routine down pretty well as we learned long before those safeties were on motorcycles.  The downsides of all the safety devices is that they add some weight and complexity to the bike, and they can fail and be somewhat hard for folks to diagnose on the side of a road.  The petcock and sidestand switch are the two most common failures that can really get you looking in the wrong place to solve the problem.

I am not sure if the other bikes with vacuum petcocks have as much failure as the Savage does......my Ninja 250 and 250 Super Sherpa both had vacuum petcocks, and the 1972 GT550 Suzuki tank I put on my bike came with a vacuum petcock on it.

And when it comes to safety interlocks....the ones on new mowers drives me crazy!  My mother's Cub Cadet stops the mower blades whenever you back up, and the interlock on the seat is far too sensitive and when a bump causes you to get a little light on the seat...the interlock stops the cutting blades as it doesn't think you are still sitting down.  It takes about 10 feet to get stopped when this happens, then you have to back up and restart the mower deck so you can cut the part that wasn't cut when the blades stopped.  (If it was my mower I would have those interlocks (reverse and seat) bypassed before I ever used the darn thing).

Yep, I have a 10 year old riding mower with all safety features defeated so the thing is usable.

And I engage MC kickstand kill switches just often enough to know I am the idiot they put it on there for...

Art Webb wrote on 12/02/15 at 09:17:04:


Well I have turned the clock back on my bike a little bit.  Manual Petcock, no clutch safety, and no kickstand switch anymore.  That'll teach em not to try and keep me safe against my will!

When I had trouble, it was from fuel starvation resulting from garbage in the screen behind the float valve. If you are having limited fuel delivery, then letting off on the fuel or shutting the engine off and turning it back on should help, but with the vac petcock, this effect is limited since reducing/eliminating the need for fuel will also reduce/eliminate its delivery.

I have a manual petcock. The garbage resulted from a filter tube having fallen off.

The idea is that the float bowl holds a small reserve of gas. If demand is higher than supply, the bowl will run low, resulting in starvation. After a little while, the bowl will refill. For me, it was enough to get out a few miles before having to pull to the side of the highway... over, and over, and over, and over. After a half-dozen, or maybe a dozen times pulling over, I'd manage to limp and crawl the bike to its destination .

[/quote]

Uhhh... Why didn't you just take some torches and melt the thing already! [/quote]

That would have worked fine. I musta been out of acetylene at the time, and my feelings toward the stock petcock were running so high I elected to give it the full Alfred Hitchcock treatment.

Half measures will not do with a Savage vacuum petcock. It is pure evil. It will climb back out of a trash can onto the garage floor, you will step on it and destroy your foot.

I is indeed evil beyond the grave
and it must not be allowed to return or worse, SPAWN