Valk died while riding in rain. Why?

[Rio Wil]

Yep, the port is to the rear of the petcock and drops straight down behind the engine by the slave clutch....ya know, we might be gaining some ground on your experience.  Do you have any idea of how long after the rain started that the event occurred?

[spongebob]

 Many years ago heading to Sturgis, run into a heck  of a rain shower...... bike spit, coughed, spit again and then died.......... could not get the dragon lady to fire and start......noticed and heard a popping sound..... noticed sparks coming from spark plug wires to ground.....the wires had broken down to a point that when water got on them, she sparked to ground.......

[jabster]

Yep, the port is to the rear of the petcock and drops straight down behind the engine by the slave clutch....ya know, we might be gaining some ground on your experience.  Do you have any idea of how long after the rain started that the event occurred?

Roughly.... I'm going to say about a mile from when the first drops hit. And maybe a quarter mile, if that, once the downpour started. Then I got maybe another quarter mile before it died the second time, sputtering the whole time they hard rain

John

[pancho]

Yeah,, Daniel and Skinhead may have had this one from the get go,,, with the quick cooling from the rain and the vent without the vacuum break...................  Still like to see a check of the petcock


Hey spongebob,,,, was that on a Valkyrie???

[gordonv]

Just because you rebuild your petcock 9 months ago, doesn't eliminate it as a possible problem. Lower on the list, but still could be.

At least one person has report a second failure in a very short time (hours, days, weeks???) after rebuilding, and needing to do it again.

I was in the habit of every monday driving to work, after the bike was warm and on the highway, to turn the petcock off (I leave it on always), to see if the carbs would start to die out, which they did, then turn back one.

[Rio Wil]

What Valk do you have, on my I/S the driest spot on the bike when raining is the fuel tank and would thus not suffer too much a temp change from a small amount of water striking the tank. The internal temp of the tank would most likely be determined by the temp of the fuel.....which would take several minutes to change.  Spongebob mentioned a condition where within a very short time he had ignition issues that brought the bike to its knees.  Have you ran the tank down to the point where the carbs are starving and then switched to reserve.....you know the feel and more importantly the sound. Was it just a general decrease in power and in sound or did you get any popping and backfire like Spongebob described?

[jabster]

What Valk do you have, on my I/S the driest spot on the bike when raining is the fuel tank and would thus not suffer too much a temp change from a small amount of water striking the tank. The internal temp of the tank would most likely be determined by the temp of the fuel.....which would take several minutes to change.  Spongebob mentioned a condition where within a very short time he had ignition issues that brought the bike to its knees.  Have you ran the tank down to the point where the carbs are starving and then switched to reserve.....you know the feel and more importantly the sound. Was it just a general decrease in power and in sound or did you get any popping and backfire like Spongebob described?

1998 Tourer. Sounded & felt like I was running out of gas, which is why I switched to reserve to begin with. I'd in fact passed the local cheap gas station since I was only at 97 miles and had about 5 to get home. I don't specifically recall any popping or backfire; at least nothing that seemed any different than the main being empty. Loss of power obviously. But again, it was a HEAVY rain, and I wasn't focusing on much else except staying upright, avoiding cars, and then finally getting off the road safely as it died. I will add that when I switched to reserve, I do recall it not recovering the way it usually does, as the carbs start getting the gas they need.

And I nearly always ride until I start to run out of gas, switch to reserve, then fill up.

Just got back inside from putting a Tee in, btw.

-John

[pancho]

Hey John,,, did you run a piece of hose from the bottom of the tee??

[pancho]

I would still check the petcock with a oral vacuum check,,,,,,, just to rule it out or in.....

[jabster]

Hey John,,, did you run a piece of hose from the bottom of the tee??

Yes.

[Rio Wil]

John.....as far as I can tell, we have beat this one senseless. Since it seemed to be a typical run the carbs dry condition and you found the missing tee, maybe that does it for you.  I think I would still check the petcock both for a vac leak off and perhaps take it apart again to verify that the diaphragm has not slipped off the little plastic nipple.  The reason I suggest this inspection, I did a rebuild and left on a 1500 mile 7 day trip.  It ran fine til a week after I got home, then started the fuel starvation act again.  Disassembling the petcock revealed the diaphragm has indeed slipped over the nipple and was not allowing the fuel to flow fully.....

Oh, a few years later at the next failure, I just gutted the thing and that's that!

[pancho]

I agree,, an old diaphragm with a hole is not the only mode of failure on these things.