Hydrolock advise needed

[Poor Ol Harry]

# 6 loaded up......but I think & hope no damage... as I removed all 6 plugs & can spin engin which I THINK is a good thing?? I removed the tank hoping to find a faulty petcock,,,,,,I think I have read that if a faulty diaphram.... fuel will pass to the carbs no matter what position OFF or ON ?.....so far I have not seen fuel come out of the petcock but I did not have a small hose to suck a vacume on it ...but if it were bad fuel should leak through RITE ?. I think I read ......the vac hose on petcock comes from# 6 carb & can feed fuel to #6 ? So can someone tell me where the fruel is coming from......as I have not seen any leaks yet???   thank you Harry

[Dozer]

IMHO, It sounds like the petcock is working as required but float needle valve in #6 is leaking. Its over flowing the bowl and running into the cylinder through one of the valves...probably the intake. The fix would be to replace the float needle and possibly the float too. Its something that you can do yourself.

[hubcapsc]

My buddy Gary bought a Valkyrie that had a bad petcock diaphragm... the previous
owner tried to "fix" the leaking petcock by plugging up the weep hole. The gas
had no-place to go but down the vacuum line to number six. His #6 plug was all
fouled and raw gas shot out the exhaust pipe when he started it. He lucked out, no
hydrolock...

If you don't have a leaky drippy petcock, maybe you have one of those barely-bad
slowly dripping petcocks, and your #6 float valve also passes gas to number six.

Either way, it might be time to think about a "cover set" to rebuild your petcock,
or a "pingel" to replace it...



-Mike

[Dozer]

My buddy Gary bought a Valkyrie that had a bad petcock diaphragm... the previous
owner tried to "fix" the leaking petcock by plugging up the weep hole. The gas
had no-place to go but down the vacuum line to number six. His #6 plug was all
fouled and raw gas shot out the exhaust pipe when he started it. He lucked out, no
hydrolock...

If you don't have a leaky drippy petcock, maybe you have one of those barely-bad
slowly dripping petcocks, and your #6 float valve also passes gas to number six.

Either way, it might be time to think about a "cover set" to rebuild your petcock,

Someone actually did that!!!!! :


or a "pingel" to replace it...



-Mike

[Dozer]

If you suspect the petcock, you can pull the vacuum line off of #6  intake runner and put it into a baggie. Let it sit for a while..day or two and see if theres any gas in it. I have found many phantom leaks like that on aircraft. That will tell you for sure.

[Patrick]

Like has been said, fuel can enter #6 cylinder either by the vacuum line or the carburetor.. I recommend a Pingle valve and flushing quite a bit of fuel thru that carburetor..  How much fuel came out of that cylinder ??  If the engine spun over fine when you were clearing it and the starter sounded OK, then it seems like there was no damage..

[Ricky-D]

It's possible that you had some kind of temporary problem such as a sticking float or a particle jamming the needle valve.

Transitory would describe it best.

Not much to worry about at this time but certainly an incentive to keep an eye out in the future.

Same thing happened to me one time.

Caused me to go to a Pingle.

***

[John Schmidt]

Just remember, h-lock can...and will, occur in any cylinder, not just #6. All you need is a leaky petcock and a leaky float valve in a cylinder with an open intake valve when you shut down. How's that for encouragement? 

[Mr.BubblesVRCCDS0008]

Harry when you trailered this bike did you turn the fuel off. I've had fuel leak before from the bike bouncing up and down while on the trailer. You can also convert the stock valve to a manual valve fairly easy.