The Hodaka Club Forum

Out doing trail riding this AM when the W'Bat died. Sigh. Ran out of gas. Just neglected to keep track of fuel.
Old bike, Old nut that holds the handlebar

I need to be in the habit of turning one petcock on and leaving the other one off to keep the other "half of the tank" of fuel reserve, but I have two new, snug petcocks I'm trying to loosen up. I may just cycle one off and on at startup so I can run with one.

One thing I might try is to get a piece of brass tubing and solder it to petcock intake as a longer "intake straw" that would run out of fuel sooner and prompt me to switch to the other petcock.

Anything to save A Walk of Shame.

There is always the "stone age" method of providing for reserve fuel. Neither of my toaster tank Hodies have a working petcock on the right side. The downside is that I have to lay the bike down on the left side to slosh "right side fuel" over to the left side when I need to access reserve fuel. The upside is I KNOW the reserve fuel will be there.
Ed

The Beemer can have "double reserve". Two petcocks each with a Reserve setting which give 15 miles per side. When I go on reserve, one goes to RES, the other to OFF. I run on one side, get a reprieve with the other side.

I've done got spoilt and need to develop an SOP with the Hodie.

With the "stone age" method of reserve fuel control, your SOP is um, set in stone the instant you remove or "un-plumb" the right side petcock. All that is needed is to remember that some fuel is trapped over there on the right side the next time a "walk of shame" situation presents itself.

Hmmmmmm, perhaps that requirement for memory presents a conundrum - if one forgets to put fuel in the tank, will one remember there IS fuel in the tank when the woods go silent?
Ed

Leaving fuel trapped on the back side of the hump works for street bikes, but not so much for trail bikes because of fuel sloshing. If you feel comfortable relying on fuel trapped in a blank area of the tank, that works for me. Better to open the tank and verify fuel before leaving the ranch.

On the Beemer I turn both petocks ON even though it runs fine with one. Force of habit. And as habitually, the right one then the left one.

On the Hodie, check the fuel level, right petcock ON, do the left-side stuff then kick it off.

Main cause was getting out of the habit of checking the fuel. A lot of break-in runs ib the pasture and short offroad practice runs next door. Nothing extensive til I got the mixture/seizure prob resolved, then I started riding longer distances. Now I check. Always trying to combat CRS.

Bullfrog wrote:There is always the "stone age" method of providing for reserve fuel. Neither of my toaster tank Hodies have a working petcock on the right side. The downside is that I have to lay the bike down on the left side to slosh "right side fuel" over to the left side when I need to access reserve fuel. The upside is I KNOW the reserve fuel will be there.
Ed

ED buy a new petcock are you that young to lay your bike over and then pick it back up again. I'll send you one
MTRob

I'd have to guess there is about the same amount of fuel available for sloshing over to the left side as there is available by turning on the right petcock when needed. Yup, check fuel before heading out.

Um, save the postage MTRob - I've got petcocks laying around which I am actively NOT using. Mayhaps in another 10 years or so the passage of time will mean that 1) I regularly forget to check fuel before heading out AND 2) that I won't have the physical ability to lay the bike over and pick it up again - but ALSO, 3) I'll probably be on a much shorter leash and won't be allowed to ride out of site of the van.

Ed

Uh-oh . . . it's starting (that age thing) . . . that should have been "sight", not "site".
Ed

Bullfrog wrote:I'd have to guess there is about the same amount of fuel available for sloshing over to the left side as there is available by turning on the right petcock when needed. Ed

Which would generally result in running out of gas at about the same time on a dirt bike whether you have one petcock or two. So if one passes enough fuel to feed your ride, one is enough.

Ed, that is why I favor the idea of one petcock being fitted with a longer intake tube ("straw") to make it a "main" fuel tap and make the other stock petcock the "reserve".

Snd remember to check fuel.

This is what I ended up doing this AM.
I put longer straw on one of the petcocks. The old short straw was pressed in and easily removable. I had some 3/16" (.188", 4.76mm) K&S brass tubing that wasa loose fit in the 5mm bore. I used dab of JB Weld to secure the new straw.

On my WBat-94 chrome tank the saddle is 4" (100mm) higher than the floor of the tank, so I made the new straw 3" (75mm) long. So running on the one long-straw petcock it will run out fuel on the "main tank" with at least 3" of fuel in each saddle half, which is the fuel reserve. I have no idea what this volume of fuel is, but the tank is currently empty I can measure the Reserve volume.

On the Beemer, I have the Main/Res volumes adjusted so that I get 250 miles on the main tank and 30 miles on Reserve. I don't know what the exact mileage on the Hodie is, or how much Reserve to give myself, but that csn be figured.

Here is a photo of the modified petcocks:

Today I measured the fuel volume of the right sidenog the tank up to the top of the extended inlet straw. This gives the amount of fuel remaining in that tank half after the engine sputters when the "main tank" runs out. I'll assume that because of sloshing each tank half will contain similar volumes of fuel.

I found that the petcock with an extended 75mm straw leaves a fuel volume of 1.3 Liters per side or 2.6 L.total reserve. Assuming mileage 100mpg this works out to be about 30 miles of reserve for each side or 60 miles total. Even with horrid offfoad fuel consumption there will still be 40-50 miles reprieve on Reserve. Given a tank volume of 10.4 L, this works out to about 1/4 of the tank capacity as Reserve.

This seems to be an adequate Reserve.