Q for those who have had hydrolock.

[F6BANGER]

Did you guys always leave your petcock on? Did you turn it off every time? Did you fill the tank before you hit reserve? Just trying to figure out what makes it go bad.    Thanks

[FLAVALK]

Did you guys always leave your petcock on? Did you turn it off every time? Did you fill the tank before you hit reserve? Just trying to figure out what makes it go bad.    Thanks

I always turn mine off...it locked anyway because, in part, the petcock failed. Throw it away and buy a Pingle

Opinions will vary but thats mine

[Patrick]

I always turn the fuel off, 50 yrs of habit is hard to break.. I had converted the OEM valve to manual, seemed like the thing to do at the time, but, ended up filling #1 hole with fuel anyway.. Since the installation of a Pingle and a filter there have been no problems, well, at least for the past 10-11 yrs anyway..

[GOOSE]

go with a pingle....sooner or later you are going to have that stock petcock go bad, and if you get a stuck float at the same time that your petcock is bad (and leaking) WHAMO....HYDRO-LOCK!!!!!

[judd]

For what it's worth, 00' Tourer here........... never have turned fuel off and have never had hydrolock (probably just lucky).....................although I do turn it off during the winter down time,  usually around 6 months where I am. I try to fill tank after any ride and make sure to fill to brim and put stabilizer/seafoam in for winter storage to prevent rust from forming in the tank which may contribute to messed up petcock and stuck floats which bring on the dreaded hydrolock.

I am of the opinion right or wrong, that constantly turning that petcock on and off contributes to it's demise.............I'm keeping my fingers crossed !!!

[Hoser]

For what it's worth, 00' Tourer here........... never have turned fuel off and have never had hydrolock (probably just lucky).....................although I do turn it off during the winter down time,  usually around 6 months where I am. I try to fill tank after any ride and make sure to fill to brim and put stabilizer/seafoam in for winter storage to prevent rust from forming in the tank which may contribute to messed up petcock and stuck floats which bring on the dreaded hydrolock.

I am of the opinion right or wrong, that constantly turning the petcack on and off contributes to it's demise.............I'm keeping my fingers crossed !!!

Good luck with that.....

[judd]

I always turn mine off...it locked anyway because, in part, the petcock failed.

That's another reason why I don't bother to turn it off, seems to happen regardless..............I do check from time to time with a quick stab of the starter button to make sure it is not locked, as it is always lurking at the back of my mind. 

Lately I've been thinking that if it ever happens to me, I might just part the rest of the bike out and be done with it, as much as I love this bike I'm not sure that I am prepared to invest anymore time and money in it and will likely never buy another Honda after the way they abandoned the Valkyrie and all their riders. Never mind the hydrolock issue, parts will become scarce soon enough and I don't relish the thought of being stuck somewhere on a ride,  unable to scource a U-joint or yoke or some other critical part that would require me to trailer the bike home and wait who knows how long for parts that should be on dealers shelves, or at the very least a day or two away.

Great bike with limited support...................Oops sorry, got a little off topic there, back to the regular scheduled programming. 

Can anyone shed some light on the exact reasons WHY the stock petcock might fail in the first place ???

[Westsider]

for one of a few reasons,,with the valve hooked up to only one cylinder for a vacume supply, at idle the diaphram is being pounded back and forth with the vac. pulse--look at a sync gage at idle--wears the diapham out after a while,,,if you run it i would tee to two vac supplies for a smoother constant vacume. but then you might fill up two cylinders...crap....i love me pingler...was a easy decision...ride on brother ...sorry scratch that,,,,,i ve never had a lock up.

[judd]

Ahhh, so my on/off theory may be all wrong afterall .........................Looks like I'll be doin the Pingle or the Electric shutoff soon myself, hopefully before a catastrophic event...........    

[F6Ghostrider VRCC #32501]

OK, I'm relatively new to the VRCC wesite. I have never heard of Hydrolock.
What is it and what happens?
How can I prevent it?
I saw where Patrick mentioned the stock petcock going bad and then FLAVALK mentioned filling #1 hole with fuel.

It seems that my Valk dumps fuel on the ground every time I go to start her. Hard to start too. Cranks for 10 -15 seconds then blows white smoke for a minute. Acts like it's flooded.

Jeff.

[rodeo1]

hey judd,

be at ease soldier, when you read these forums, take most of what you hear with a grain of salt. just like the dreaded "oil" question, ask it and it will go on for hours, days, weeks, eveyone has an opinion of what works best. but guess what ? good old walmart 10W40 will make your valk live forever if you are changing it every 3,000 miles.

you have bought the finest, toughest, most bullet proof motorcycle on earth. the motor came from 20 years of honda working to perfect the gold wing engine, talk about bulletproof !!

i have worn out  4 goldwings and two valks. in all the years i have been riding them, including gold wings, i have "NEVER" experienced any mechanical breakdown with the goldwing based engine, "EVER".

the problem with all forums is that you hear from 3 or 4 guys they have had a problem, so you go tear yours down immediatly to see if you have the problem, sort of like hypomechanicondriacs, you find nothing, but now you worry. you haven't taken time to realize honda made a zillion of these things and you only heard of 4 having a particular problem. i rode one valk over 130,000 miles with no fuel petcock problems. i have never had a rear end go out, and never replaced the "elusive o rings". it gets crappy gas mileage, but thats about it. it out handles, outruns, out cools everyhting out there.

go ride that thing and stop worrying about it. there is a reason people spend a fortune on bling with these bikes. there ain't much else to spent the money on. the bikes perfect !


now, and please don't flame me silly, but i do not, "EVER" use car tires on a bike, add superchargers, straight pipes, unhook smog devices, or any of the other things folks do that cannot resist tinkering. i believe honda paid good engineers lots of money to produce a really good bike. i have no dreams of ever being smarter than they are with my high school education, so i leave things the way they designed them. i have an old friend who rides a 1976 harley dresser. he has ridden it well over 200,000 miles with no real breakdowns, and zero engine rebuilds. his philosophy is much the same. he feels the bike has lasted because he never put a set of loud pipes on it, and does not tinker with the motor.

so ride, ride, ride, my brother. you can't hurt it !

[judd]

so ride, ride, ride, my brother. you can't hurt it !

Wise words Rodeo1, I do ride the crap out of it and it has never let me down to date, I'll just soldier on as you say and if it happens, then so be it............I'll cross that bridge when it does.....Thanx

Regards, Judd

It is the best darn cycle for my needs that I've ever riddin. 

[BradValk48237]

When I repaired my petcock with the kit, I looked at the old diaphragm and it was worn/thinned, cracked around the center of the diaphragm. You could see the fabric pattern. I think that it just a very thin piece of nylon-like fabric covered with rubber or something like it. Over time, like anything that has to flex and is in contact with fuel, it will wear out. and it doesn't take much of a hole to lose the vacuum.

I have had no issues since, but I always turn it off now......

B

[Tropic traveler]

Mine was turned off. I hit the starter button one morning to go for a ride & THUNK.... Not happening.
No damage thankfully. 
Pulled carbs & cleaned, all gummed up. Tank was rusty, cleaned & relined it. New OEM petcock & added an inline fuel filter.
No problemos for 3 years & over 30,000 miles.

[rodeo1]

now i consider myself a pretty fair mechanic, after all i once had a harley

you do all realize that unless you have a carb that is leaking fuel into the engine (bad needle and seat) you cannot have hydrolock, no matter what the petcock is up to. petcocks were put on old triumphs and bikes with amal carbs, (carbs with no fuel bowls), therefore no needle and seats to control flow. you turned on the fuel, started her up and went. then when you parked it you had to be sure to shut off the fuel. with the invention of the float and bowl type carbs, you have the needle and seat to shut off the flow.

that said, needles and seats can in fact stick, and when they do can still cause a cyl. to fill with gas, i have seen car motors with rods bent from it. i cannot imagine you would bend the rods in a valk, its pretty strong down there, i would guess if it happened by trying to start it, you would lose a starter gear, but not the bottom end of the engine. (but i have never seen it happen so i cannot speak with any certainty)

in my book, changing to a pingle might be a good idea, but you would still have to shut it off to be sure, and you still need good tight needles and seats.

having torn down a OEM petcock i fail to see what you mean about the diaphram being beaten up by the vac, the vac. sucks it to the open position and holds it there, i find it pretty hard to buy into, that it is going ape sh*^ like the needle on a vac. guage, i wouldn't see it lasting out the week if it was doing that.

bottom line here is the health of your needles and seats. if the floats are good and the needles sealing, no fuel can get to the cyl. to lock it. i have found over the years that a little marvel mystery oil, seafoam, or some good fuel system cleaner to be a lot better insurance that changing out the petcock. remember, once you do that, you have to remember to always shut it off, the OEM petcock shuts itself off when the engine stops.

everyone has to do what makes his bell ring. i just hope some of the paranoia about all this can come into perspective and everyone stop worrying about the best engineered bike on earth and concentrate on riding it.

watch them dry splines !

rodeo

[Blackduck]

Rode01, I am with you on this.
I have had Valks for 11 years, a mate has one of the first ones bought into Australia. We have never had a diaphragm fail.
I have had a hydrolock. Happened after I had been into the carbs for a jet change.
Had put it all back together but left it for a couple of days on the bike lift.
Went to start it and found it locked. Think one of the floats must have been sticking when it went back together.
The fuel leaked past the closed petcock because of side loading on the valve stem and the diaphragm was stuck open due to bleed orifice in the petcock was plugged.
I pulled tank, dismantled the petcock and did not see anything wrong. Put it all back and when I applied vacuum and let it of the fuel still flowed out of the open petcock. Pulled tha tank again to find why the vacumm was staying on.
Found the oricice pluggged. It is very fine, the thinest wire drill I had was too big tom go through it.
Drilled to that size, added 2 more vacuum lines to 2 other cylinders with restrictors made using the same wire drill. With a vacuum gauge tee'd into the line there is no pulsing. Still running the same petcock with no more issues. Suspect a lot of the petcock failures are from side load valve stems.
Each to their own way of thinking

[rodeo1]

blackduck

sounds very reasonable.

[Red Diamond]

I usually don't get in on these type discussions for assorted reasons, "RODEO" you da man. First time I have ever heard anyone who understands the hydrolock theory and why it happens.

[Bullgoose]

One thing you can do to check for hydrolock is to bump the starter a coupla times. If it's locked, you'll know it.

Question re: pingle. For those of you that have them, how far up under the tank do you have to reach to turn it on/off?

Had gas flow problems last week after working on the valky. Thought it was a petcock prob. To make a very long story short... turns out, when I put in the new gas line, I cut it about 1/4" too long. Just enough to crimp the line a little and restrict gas flow above 60mph. It was a pain figuring that out. BUT, my petcock is not working 100%. I can ride around with it in the off position and never run dry. All the guts are new 7 months ago. Has me a little worried.
Any suggestions?
TIA

[Blackduck]

1 possiblility is the side load I have mentioned above.
Easy to check, remove the fuel line from the petcock. With petcock in the off position apply vacuum to the diaphragm, if it flows wriggle the selector to see if it stops or remove the selector screw and see if it stops then.
If you remove the petcock any time you have to get it aligned so there is no side loading from the chrome cover the selecxtor goes through.
Cheers Steve

[Bullgoose]

Ah, I now understand what side load is and I think that is the problem. I tested the petcock as you suggested and it worked properly. when back on the bike is when it seems to malfunction. Problem is, I don't seem to have a lot of wiggle room to adjust the selector. When I tighten the screw, it's pretty tight. The selector does not want to move. ???

[Blackduck]

It is a case of repositioning the petcock, awkward to do.
I usually have the tank in place but not bolted down, you can just get enough room to loosen the lock nut and turn the petcock.
I got a little cheesed of with having to be so accurate and slightly opened up the hole in the chrome plate
Cheers Steve

[dubsider]

hey judd,

be at ease soldier, when you read these forums, take most of what you hear with a grain of salt. just like the dreaded "oil" question, ask it and it will go on for hours, days, weeks, eveyone has an opinion of what works best. but guess what ? good old walmart 10W40 will make your valk live forever if you are changing it every 3,000 miles.

you have bought the finest, toughest, most bullet proof motorcycle on earth. the motor came from 20 years of honda working to perfect the gold wing engine, talk about bulletproof !!

i have worn out  4 goldwings and two valks. in all the years i have been riding them, including gold wings, i have "NEVER" experienced any mechanical breakdown with the goldwing based engine, "EVER".

the problem with all forums is that you hear from 3 or 4 guys they have had a problem, so you go tear yours down immediatly to see if you have the problem, sort of like hypomechanicondriacs, you find nothing, but now you worry. you haven't taken time to realize honda made a zillion of these things and you only heard of 4 having a particular problem. i rode one valk over 130,000 miles with no fuel petcock problems. i have never had a rear end go out, and never replaced the "elusive o rings". it gets crappy gas mileage, but thats about it. it out handles, outruns, out cools everyhting out there.

go ride that thing and stop worrying about it. there is a reason people spend a fortune on bling with these bikes. there ain't much else to spent the money on. the bikes perfect !


now, and please don't flame me silly, but i do not, "EVER" use car tires on a bike, add superchargers, straight pipes, unhook smog devices, or any of the other things folks do that cannot resist tinkering. i believe honda paid good engineers lots of money to produce a really good bike. i have no dreams of ever being smarter than they are with my high school education, so i leave things the way they designed them. i have an old friend who rides a 1976 harley dresser. he has ridden it well over 200,000 miles with no real breakdowns, and zero engine rebuilds. his philosophy is much the same. he feels the bike has lasted because he never put a set of loud pipes on it, and does not tinker with the motor.

so ride, ride, ride, my brother. you can't hurt it !

Rodeo1.. I think you are my hero... LET'S RIDE !!!!!!   

[Shotgun]

I don't think it really matters.  I had a bad case of hydrolock.  I had to replace the rear case.  The petcock is vacuum operated so if there is no vacuum, there is no flow.....if it is working properly.  If the engine isn't running, there is no vacuum.  If your petcock is bad, it will leak when the engine isn't running.

[Rocketman]

OK, I'm relatively new to the VRCC wesite. I have never heard of Hydrolock.
What is it and what happens?
How can I prevent it?
I saw where Patrick mentioned the stock petcock going bad and then FLAVALK mentioned filling #1 hole with fuel.

It seems that my Valk dumps fuel on the ground every time I go to start her. Hard to start too. Cranks for 10 -15 seconds then blows white smoke for a minute. Acts like it's flooded.

Jeff.

It happens when liquid fuel leaks down into a cylinder.  If you hit the starter button in this state, the piston tries to compress liquid, but cannot.  Something has to give.  Usually what gives is the idler gear, a small gear buried deep within the rear casing of the engine.  If you're very lucky, the affected cylinder was on an exhaust stroke, and can expel the fuel, rather than try to compress it.  If you're not lucky, you have to replace the gear.  Either way, you need to find the cause of the leak and fix it.  It's commonly caused by one of two events:
The stock petcock leaks through the vacuum line and bypasses the carb, and fills the #6 cylinder directly from its intake port.
or:
The petcock leaks down the normal path, but while the engine is not running, and through a leaky float valve, and into a cylinder. 
Either way, bad things can happen, and happen quickly.  The repair is not quick, and therefore expensive, especially if you don't do the work yourself.  When I paid a (bad) mechanic to fix mine, it was ~1000 for the repair.  That did not include prevention by stopping the leak.

[Rocketman]

First, I concur that there are thousands upon thousands of Valkyries which have never, and will never, be hydrolocked.  I have one that has never, and I hope will never, locked.  My first Valkyrie locked three times.  The first one was done by the previous owner, and the other two were due to a combination of my ignorance of the subject and the mechanic's incompetence.  It didn't lock a fourth time because I learned a lot, and did the repair in my garage under the guidance of a friend I met here.
Just because it doesn't happen often doesn't mean it's fun when it does happen.  It was a quick, serious failure.  The chance of it happening to you is quite low.  The consequences of it happening to you are quite high.  I recommend you do what you can to avoid it, but the choice is up to you.
Personally, I don't lose sleep over it, but I have changed to a Pingel, and check my float needle seats periodically.

Second, yes, it has to have a leaky float valve (unless it's leaking through the petcock's vacuum line direct to the #6).  However, you could just as easily say that you can have as many leaky float valves, and as long as your petcock's not leaking, you won't have a problem.  Therefore, the "exoneration" of the petcock is a bit off the point.  Both failures have to occur.  Neither failure is more or less responsible. 
I'm not sure what causes the petcock to fail.  Old rubber, vacuum pulses, and crap flowing down from the tank all seem likely culprits.  I don't believe that "overuse" of the valve by turning it off affects anything significantly.  The side load issue brought up here sounds interesting.  I don't have the stock petcock anymore, so I can't really look at that myself.

Third, if anyone here is fast enough to tap the starter button and get off it fast enough to keep from destroying things, he's a better man than I.  If anyone says he's done it, I will question whether he just got lucky.  I know people who have had hydrolocks, and with no attempt to "tap" the button, have gotten away with no damage, just a sickening clunk.  It is my opinion that the piston was just in the right part of its cycle that it wouldn't damage anything.
The only safe way to test for a hydrolock is to try to roll it in gear.  If for some reason you suspect a lock:  Before you start her, put 'er in fifth gear, and let out the clutch.  Then, slowly walk her forward.  If it rolls with minimal resistance, it's good.  If it doesn't, pull the sparkplugs.  She's locked.

Bottom line, hydrolock is not anything to lose sleep over.  However, sitting back and "hoping" won't keep you from possibly incurring major repairs.  A little bit of care, either in verifying your stock petcock frequently, or by buying a Pingel and not worrying about it again, will go a long way.

[Rocketman]

Question re: pingle. For those of you that have them, how far up under the tank do you have to reach to turn it on/off?

Had gas flow problems last week after working on the valky. Thought it was a petcock prob. To make a very long story short... turns out, when I put in the new gas line, I cut it about 1/4" too long. Just enough to crimp the line a little and restrict gas flow above 60mph. It was a pain figuring that out. BUT, my petcock is not working 100%. I can ride around with it in the off position and never run dry. All the guts are new 7 months ago. Has me a little worried.
Any suggestions?
TIA

I know, I've already responded twice to this thread, but no one has directly answered these questions.

1)  I have a Pingel.  It feels like a long reach the first time you try to find it.  However, after only a few times, it becomes second nature, and I frequently operate that valve while riding.  It's so automatic with me, that I don't have to move my shoulders or anything to reach it.  Easy.

2)  If you can ride more than a mile or two without running dry, you have a failed petcock.  Fix it NOW, before your float needle valves start to leak.  My recommendation is to go with a Pingel, but do SOMETHING, quick.  Rebuild, replace, your choice.  Until you've fixed that failure, I recommend that you use the rolling in gear procedure I mentioned in my previous reply to this thread.  Every time before you start the engine.


[EDIT:  I see that his problem was from a long time ago.  Oops.  I hope it's been fixed by now, but I'll leave the response anyway.]