I'll take a closer look next time I go out by it.

 

The metric bikes I've owned have the long part of the lever pointing to the gas position. I had to do a double take on my Sportster when I first bought it to make sure of the petcock position. It is opposite of the Honda's and Suzuki's I've owned. I know I've got it right because I've gone to reserver twice since I bought it. I set the trip odometer at every re-fuel and when I see about 80 miles I start looking for a station.

 

Thinking about it, my lever has a pointed end and a blunt end, I usually put the pointed end facing up. I could be going crazy though.

80 miles really? Is that when you have to use reserve or just when you look to refuel?

 

I have never had mine cut off,just sputter before i go to reserve....I start looking for the gas pumps around 140 miles and have gone as far as 40 miles on reserve (4.5 gallon tank)

 

My metric bikes have all had the long part of the lever opposite of the way it's pointing.

And yes most bikes don't just die, they'll sputter first. Some will just die though, that's always fun :-)

 

Yeah mine bucked a little, like a surge of power, then outright shut off. So when its horizontal, CCW should be "ON"?

 

my reserve will take me 20 miles or so, ive had to use it twice in the past week when i ran outta gas on the highway. I was confused at first whether i had my switch set to fuel or reserve, take a good look at it

 

I was forced to fondle my petcock this past weekend as well.

After riding to a breakfast meeting, and returning to the bike afterwards, I start it up, pull out of the parking garage onto the street and... sputter/die. Good cranking, but no start. (For the record, I always turn the petcock closed when I shut down the bike, as I've been told that the gravity-fed fuel line will leak/flood the carb.) I was pretty sure I had fuel in the tank so I thought I had some kind of no-spark electrical problem. On a desperate whim, I turned the petcock to "Reserve" (pointing down) and the bike started right up and ran fine. I headed straight across the street to a station and filled no more than a gallon to top off the tank. Started it up (still in reserve-mode) and then turned the petcock to main while it was running. The bike ran just like it was supposed to from then on. I'm positive that I didn't have the arrow pointing in the wrong direction at any time.

Since I'm not sure how a stock tank/petcock/reserve works, it seemed to me that I had a clogged main petcock line. However...

I have an aftermarket stretched 4-gallon tank (didn't buy the tank - it was already on the bike). As I said, I'm not sure how the whole reserve thing works, but I doubt my aftermarket tank has a reserve sectioned off inside. But maybe it does.

Keeping the after-market tank in mind, does the petcock itself have separate screens/filters for both the main and reserve functions? I've had petcocks out and I know what the in-tank screen looks like, but from where does that reserve fuel come, and how does it get to the petcock?

 

yes.....

 

Ah, Houston, we've found the problem. The narrow pointed end should be down, until you run otta gas. That's when ya do the little petcock flip, I mentioned. Turn it 180 degrees and then you'll be on reserve. You've been running with the petcock already set to reserve. So, when you run outta gas...it's time to PUSH.