Fuel tap

[redmazda]

Hi all just curious when you put bike buy in garage for a few days do you always turn tap off I only ask as my yamaha fizzy once the float got stuck and as my garage is joined under my home it stunk house out lol and also safety point and I asked last owner about the tap position when runing and he said he leaves it on RES ?? So just woundering what people do on these bikes thanks

[Neosophist]

Leaving it on Reserve is just asking for trouble... I left one of my old scooters on reserve once and went out for a late night ride during summer out into the sticks... when it started coughing and spluttering i went to switch it to reserve (normal practice) only to find it was already there and I had no reserve fuel left.

Ended up pushing the thing 2 hours back to the nearest open service station, all for a simple cock up.

Honda have a secondary safety system called vaccum operated fuel tap.. when the engine isn't running the fuels shuts off, so tank position is irrelevant.

However, due to the age of the bikes these systems often fail now unless they have been rebuilt, even then its probably good practive to turn the tap off when not using the bike.

I've left bikes for 6 months or more with the tap on and had no issues (even on bikes without vaccum taps) but if it's off it's off... unless of course your old tap is worn out too.

Normal practice would be to drive around switched to on.. when the bike starts running out of fuel switch to reserve and head to nearest fuels station.

Old bikes might have failed vaccum systems / leaking fuel taps so without periodic inspection can never be too sure... easy way to test is is to pull the fuel hose off the tank and connect a dummy hose to a plastic bottle.. with the fuel tap set to on / reserve make sure no fuel comes out.. leave it for an hour or two and check for any leakage.

I always check old fuel taps whenever im working on the bike, and at least once every 12 months.