What would you do? Petcock woes

[brveagle]

I have a 1980 gs550e with a vacuum operated petcock. I have wrestled with it for the past eight years. It started letting gas flow to number 2 cylinder through the vacuum tube. Bike runs great but bogs because of this cylinder miss. I tried rebuild kits and replaced diaphrams. About a year ago i finally bit the bullet and bought a new oem suzuki petcock from bikebandit. Money well spent or so i thought. The vacuum line is sucking fuel again. I can stand there and watch gas slide down the hose.

Do i open up the "new" petcock and try to replace the guts again ? Cut my losses and order a new one again?

[Triam]

That's very odd that an OEM petcock went bad that quickly. I've never heard of that before. Odds are that if you replace the guts then pretty soon you'll have the same problem or worse.... One option to save money would be to buy a new petcock from Z1Enterprises and try to fit it on your bike. There's no guarantee it'll work, but after some research you may find that you can do something similar to this thread here http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum...cock-on-an-850 and make the cheaper, high quality petcock work. (I'm the one that made that thread and I haven't had a problem with it to this day).

[tom203]

You might have got a defective unit-stuff happens. Just get a new one $50 from this guy.. I'm assuming that you have the infamous leverless petcock..

http://www.georgefixs.com/1980-gs550-gs750-gs850-gs1000-gs1100-petcock/

[Nessism]

Are you sure it's fuel? Condensation is present in the system which may look like fuel. This often happens when vacuum syncing carbs using the old mercury gauges; it's normal for there to be an inch or so of fluid on top of the mercury column.

[brveagle]

Thanks for the responses guys. I do have a petcock with a lever.

100% positive it's fuel. It'll load down the #2 cylinder when cruising. Plus i tested my theory by running the bike and then pulling the line and having the gas drip on my fingers. Def fuel.

I thought about z1's petcocks but like stated above, there is not guarantee they will fit. It seems like petcocks were one thing suzuki changed more than anything. Triam, that is a nice writeup, i may end up going that route. Just frustrated that the ol girl is down and out again.

[trippivot]

new gas is terrible for the rubber- K&L brand rebuild kits are one option -get 2 and rebuild the old one as a spare (if possible - some are rivited)

block both ends of the vacuum and run it on pri - but that feeds from bottom and you will not have a reserve

I buy pingle fuel taps and remember the adapter plate comes separately - expect near $100 range.

[hannibal]

I have a new petcock from Z1 (the low reserve version).
What do you want to measure?

[tom203]

Remove your existing petcock and measure centerline bolt spacing - if it's 44mm, you can get new one easy and cheap from that link that I posted with the leverless unit .