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Hey everyone, I've been trying to fix up a 1980 sportster that I bought for $1600 from a friend of mine a couple of months ago. I did the alternator conversion, changed the rear tail light to LED since my cover came off anyways, replaced all the orings, gaskets, and float needle, put a set of brand new bridge stone spitfire's on it to replace the dry-rotted dunlop's it had on it before. Anyways, I was riding it home the other day and as I was riding the bike was trying to stall out on me. The feeling it had was like it was running out of fuel, it was bucking from I got it to fire back up after a while but it just kept trying to die on me so I limped it back home. After I got it home I thought "well it seems like maybe the petcock might be plugged up and its hard to turn anyways" so I replaced it thinking it would be a simple solution, I also emptied the fuel tank to put the petcock in and put brand new fuel in it. Problem is still there, after I did that I took the carb apart and cleaned all the jets to make sure that wasn't my issue, still nothing. I started it after installing the new petcock and it wouldn't even start with the choke, on top of that it was doing the same thing it was doing on the road, trying to stall and then when I gave it some throttle it would rev up and bog, rev up and bog, over and over until I eventually just let it die and parked it.
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Have you checked your pushrods yet? -
Well, although going through a carb that is in a bike that has been sitting for some time is good practice, you should have verified that you were not getting gas to the carb before replacing the petcock. Replacing parts without verifying that they are indeed defective gets expensive pretty quick. One thing to check, if you have an inline fuel filter along with the screen in the petcock, that has been known to cause fuel flow issues. I would pull the fuel line off the carb and open the petcock and make sure you have fuel flow. If you have fuel flow, it's an issue elsewhere. If you don't, you may have a collapsed line, or more likely, crap in your tank that is plugging your filter or screen. Also, what type of carb is on it? Hope some of this helps, and good luck with your project.Comment
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Well as for the reason I replaced the petcock mainly is because it was way to hard to turn it between the settings without plyers. Also, the petcock itself was falling apart. I will add a picture so you can see.
As far as an inline fuel filter I did not have one but I added one.
I think my carb is the stock keihin that came with it as it had “K” stamped into a few spots on the inside.Attached FilesComment
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Well, as I stated, if you added the inline filter, remove the screen. That alone has caused fuel starvation issues for a few here. Also, again, check the tank to see what it looks like on the inside. Can't tell too well from the photos, but something was on your petcock (may be rubber from an o-ring, but again, I wasn't able to identify from the photos. By the way, wasn't trying to be a dick when I made the comment about checking before replacing parts. I have known people who just replaced things until they found the right one or gave up trying. Gets expensive doing it that way. Again, good luck with this.Comment
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Here is some info that may help with the carb(if that's the issue):
How to tune Keihin carbs - links
Keihin carb rebuild series:
And look for a pdf manual here;Thread: HD Manuals .pdf
And see lots of info here;
Technical Stickys Index - TuneUps, ReBuilds, Etc, Etc, Etc...
a collection of informative posts made by many of us here in the ironhead forum
If buildin' old school choppers was easy, anyone could do it... ain't nobody said it's gonna be easy...Comment
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I will remove the screen, that makes sense. Also, I didn’t take it offensively I just wanted to be clear of why I did it so nobody was confused. The black pieces from the picture were pieces of the o-ring from the petcock though which is what I figured when I changed it was the issue but it obviously wasn’t. I am going to empty the tank again just to make sure the inside isn’t dirty or rusted because I forgot to check last time. That way I can remove the screen too.Comment
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Alright, so I saw someone mention before on here on a bogging down post that they removed the air filter and it seemed to run well again. I decided to try that and it seems like that combined with the screen and filter together combo may have been choking the engine. I will post back results when I buy a new filter and take out the screen later today.Comment
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