Heavy Rain and Starving for fuel

[Wayne H]

Experienced a strange one on the way home from Franklin, N.C. a couple of days ago. South of Athens, My brother and I were riding in very heavy rain for quite a few miles when My bike stared acting like it was starving for fuel and finally quit running. I did all the head scratching stuff, flip this, push that, to no avail bike would not restart. I then opened and closed the gas cap, went to full choke and the engine fired up. After riding about 7-8 miles same thing happened. This occurred three more times, after this we were finally out of the rain and the bike ran normally the remaining distance.
I have never experienced anything like this I don't understand why wet weather would cause the fuel tank to not vent.....
Any Ideas???   

[billyboy]

Wayne; This was covered on the Tech Board this last week. Something to do with water

getting into the vent hose on the left side of the bike. There is a fix, something about tee
under the tank. Check out the Tech Board. 

[John Schmidt]

Wayne, Billy is right. About halfway down from the tank to the bottom of the bike, the vent line has a tee. The purpose is to allow the vent line to still...vent, if/when the bottom end of the hose gets plugged. Which can happen from road spray in heavy rain. If the bike started once you opened the gas cap, that's your first clue; the vent ain't venting. Sorry for the redundundundancy! 

If you had been listening closely when you opened the cap, you would have heard a "whooshing" sound due to air pressure equalizing in the tank.

[Thunderbolt]

There is a tee as mentioned in the vent line, it is about half way down from the tank to where the line comes out at the kickstand.  If it has a bug that decided to live in it or stopped up by whatever, or has been removed, it will cause the problem that you described.  Top of the tee goes to the tank, bottom goes out by the kickstand, the third one is open with no connection.  What happens if it is missing or stopped up is that the water stops the tank from getting air as fuel is used and as you experienced, it does not happen in dry weather.  Also why it ran good right after you opened the tank.

[Thunderbolt]

I was typing while John was posting.  Sorry for the double up on the explanation.

[Wayne H]

Thanks Gents, You confirmed my suspicions. My bike does not have a tee I removed it along with a bunch of hoses and other garbage then vented the tank to the canister on the bottom of the bike. As heavy as the rain was coming down plus we were hitting some deep water pockets which probably caused my trouble.

I'll shorten the hose, tee it and put a small filter on each side of the tee to bug proof it.

John, At that time all I could here was traffic and rain...and maybe one or two swear words...

[Thunderbolt]

If it has a canister underneath it must have been a California bike originally.  Diane's bike had the canister and some extra vent hoses from the carbs to the canister. 

[John Schmidt]

John, At that time all I could here was traffic and rain...and maybe one or two swear words... 
I fully understand, especially the last part.