Ran Fine, Ran Out Of Gas, Ran Fine, Died.

[citizenVern]

Hello everyone, and THANK YOU for checking out this puzzle. I haven't had much luck with searching the site. I get zero results for searches like "ran out of gas, won't start" or "bad petcock". Seems odd. Sorry if this question is redundant.

Anyways, 1980 Suzuki GS550L, 19k Miles. I bought it in the spring and rode it all summer, no problems. Ran beautifully aside from a little smoke on cold starts. Coming back from the coast, I ran it out of gas (noob). And my battery was dead. My first road trip! Haha! So i got towed home, replaced the battery, fired it up with the help of some starter fluid, and the next day ran out to the North coast. No problem. Spent the night, left in the afternoon, wisely REMEMBERING to fill up with petroleum this time, but 20 miles out, going up a hill at about 60mph, it sputters and dies. I try the reserve/prime switch (the slot kind with no frikkin indicator of what it's set to! ) to no avail. Nothing i do can convince her to go. So we get towed home for the second time in 2 days. I love AAA Plus! I'd love to be a motorcycle genius more.

I've cranked and cranked it, turning the fuel switch a few degrees at a time, but nothing. No catching, no odor of fuel, just cranking. The clear fuel hose has juice in it with a little air at the top of it. The tank is full and ventilates well.

Some of my successful searches have led me to believe that maybe it's the petcock. ? Seems like if it was a carb or spark issue i'd smell something, right? It makes me wonder if i was somehow on reserve the second time, but i... i didn't even know i had one until the second time. How embarrassing. It's my first bike. My plan is to replace the petcock (with one that has a proper frikkin pointer!), and hopefully that will do, but if anyone has some wisdom regarding this problem, i beseach your sage advice.

Many thanks for any help.
cv

[Nessism]

CV,

If you want the bike to run reliably you need to do some maintenance. Rebuild the carbs properly, replace points, plugs, adjust the valves, change fluids, and check out the petcock. Until you do all this stuff you are throwing dice on whether or not you are going to get home on the bike or in a tow truck.

[Macmatic]

Have you tried it on Prime? Could be that the vacuum line to the petcock broke/came off and the petcock thinks the engine is not running. You could find a small pan or make one out of foil and drain the float bowls one at a time looking for sludge/gunk/grit or water.

Are you getting spark? Have you checked the fuses?

/\/\ac

[Big T]

I'm not sure exactly which petcock you have, but Run corresponds to 6 o clock, prime to 3 and Reserve to 9.

Having your petcock in any other position is essentially "Off"

1st test - remove gas line from petcock, hook up another piece of gas line to petcock, run said gas line into clear vessel, such as an empty jelly jar.

Turn petcock to various positions, see if gas comes out.

Now, remove vacuum line (the little one) from petcock , put another piece of vacuum line to petcock. repeat above but apply suction and see if gas comes out

Results? You should get a good flow into said vessel. If not petcock issue

And why do you say you have a good gas tank vent? Did you take the gas cap apart and clean it?

2nd test - pull your spark plugs. Are they gassy? or dry? after trying to start it , of course
3rd test - while spark plugs are out, hook them into the plug wires, crank the motor and see if you have good spark (Blue/white)

Let us know what you find.

Basscliff will be along in a bit with his mega welcome.

Since you bike runs well every now and then, we can rule out other basic things, like valves and leaky carb boots. It's either a fuel flow issue or some part of your electric ignition may be going bad.

It is 27 years old after all.

[chef1366]

You have the terrible 80 petcock. The slot up and down is prime (|) and you still have to apply vacuum to the vacuum line in order for it to flow. That's why you couldn't get it started after you ran out of gas because the float bowls were empty.
Run on the petcock has the slot back and forth. (--)

[BassCliff]

Hi Mr. citizenVern,

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Please click here for your mega-welcome, chock full of tips, suggestions, links to vendors, and other information. Then feel free to visit my little BikeCliff website where I've been collecting the wisdom of this generous community. Don't forget, we like pictures! Not you, your bike!

You'll find lots of 850 lovin' on my website.

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[citizenVern]

Spark Issue, Not Fuel

Thanks for the advice, guys. I finally had time to dig into it. Looks like those of you with money on "No Spark" win! Sorry to mislead everyone. I guess that makes more sense than a fuel issue. Here are my findings thus far:

SPARK PLUGS look like this pic), crusty tan with black outer ring except #3 which is all black. Looks like i'll be learning about tuning next. Could this be from a weak spark (bad coils or something)? I replaced the plugs for good measure, and the caps/wires look good. Still no spark.

FUSES: Test "good", but the "Ignition" (bottom) and "Signal" (above) are kind of warped. See pic here. Does it seem like they might have gotten hot? And does "Signal" mean (Ignition) Signal Generator? My manual doesn't specify.

MY BEST (amateur) GUESSES:
MAYBE COILS but it seems unlikely that both would become totally inoperable at the same time.
WIRING appears okay. Bullets are tight, nothing obviously wrong. Should i keep looking?
IGNITOR? is dead and not triggering the coils? Or maybe the
SIGNAL GENERATOR isn't triggering the Igniter, but my impression of that is that it's a very simple/bulletproof organ. ?

I'll try'n run this test, but any other tips are greatly appreciated since this is my first foray into motorcycle mechanics.

For anyone who's curious, here's what the "terrible 80's petcock" looks like. I'm gonna replace that POS too while i'm at it!

[Steve]

Can't help you much with the other stuff, but if your fuse panel is like most of the others and has five fuses:
Top fuse is for lights. This includes the headlight, instrument lights and tail light.
Second fuse is for signals. Signals includes turn signals, horn and brake light.
Third fuse is for ignition. This is what provides power to the ignitor box and the coils.
Fourth fuse is the MAIN fuse. Everything except the starter motor draws power through this fuse.
Fifth fuse is for the accessory terminal at the end of the fuse panel. It is always live.

.

[citizenVern]

Embarassing Retraction

Remember back in the days before the internet, when you could be a complete newb and not have it on permanent display? Those were the days... sigh. For the sake of those who come after me (long after i have commited ritual Seppuku 切腹 for disgracing the forum), i shall now expose my naive error, and the misinformation that i accidentally perpetrated. I re-checked my spark plug, and... she has'a the spark! I guess i didn't have the plug solidly touching a good ground.

So i sprayed in some starter fluid and voila! She fired up after a few tries, with some throttle (even though the choke was up). Once the petcock was back on "run" (I think. It is the "terrible 80's petcock". I turned it counter-clock, to horizontal) it ran okay with a little throttle (choke still up). After a minute of that, there was a sputtery kind of cough and then the RPM's shot up. There was a bit of black smoke until the engine warmed up, and then it was back to normal, purring away like nothing had happened. I rode it a block and back, and it seems fine. Great! Only... why'd it die on my in the first place!?

To recap: I ran outa gas most of the way home from a 300 mile trip (with a bad battery). The next day i rode from Portland to the coast (90 miles, good battery). The next afternoon i filled up and started back home, but only made it about 15 miles before the bike stalled out (60mph, uphill) and wouldn't make even the slightest sputter after that. Towed home. End of Summer.

Now all it took was a little starter fluid to get it going (with the help of new plugs), and it ran and idled fine for 5-10 min. I guess i'm back to a fuel issue. I will replace the petcock out of principle, if nothing else, and check the fuel lines on the way. If anyone has any other suggestions, i'm all ears.

Thanks,
citizenVern

[Suzuki mad]

Hi.

Start with the fuel tap. Could be rust around the filter which is inside the tank. Then check that the tap works properly by aplying a pipe to the vacuum side a sucking to see if fuel comes out. (I had to prime my GS1000 each time I rode her that way due to a faulty tap like yours.)

Then follow the fuel and vacuum line to check for splits.

If the bike doesn't run that way then you are looking at a carb strip and clean as the running dry has brought fine rust and dirt particles down the line into the carb and its blocked the filters inside the carbs above the float needle or an airway.

A test is to undo the drain plug in on of the outside carbs and see what colour the fuel is and if there is any debrie in there.

The other problem is engines get addicted to 'easy start.' Don't use it.

[citizenVern]

Update

It's been starting and running great since I used the spray to get it running. So weird. My only guess is something in the gas or the gas itself since it was fine until 15 miles after i filled up. Never did like Shell.

I hope that's all it was, but i've only ridden across town a few times since then because of a weird click on deceleration. I'm hi-jacking this abandoned post if anyone's got any ideas there.

I still plan on replacing the petcock this summer when the tank's not so full. If i find Jimmy Hoffa or a lost sock in the line i'll let y'all know.

citizenVern
1980 Suzuki GS550L

[Big T]

Loose chain slapping the swingarm on decel

[reddirtrider]

Your plugs were terrible. That could have very likely been the cause of the originall problems. I would reccomend that you check the voltage to the coils, and if low clean the connectors in that circuit.

[chuckycheese]

You bet!

You have the terrible 80 petcock. The slot up and down is prime (|) and you still have to apply vacuum to the vacuum line in order for it to flow. That's why you couldn't get it started after you ran out of gas because the float bowls were empty.
Run on the petcock has the slot back and forth. (--)

Very true! I put a Pingel on the 750 long ago but the 1100 still has OEM. About a week ago, I ran out of gas on the 1100 and had a hell of a time getting it started again. I noticed that same lovely feature another time about a year ago. You can pull the vaccum hose off and suck on it but it's still a real ordeal.

Until I put a Pingel on it, I guess I'll just be sure to not run out of gas more than once a year.

[citizenvern]

Stalling Problem Solved (kinda)

FYI, I think the reason my bike was doing this was leaky cracked intake boots (manifold boots?). It was very confusing to me (an admitted newb) that it would run so well around town and then stall and plays dead on occassion the highway, but after spending a lovely (unscheduled, cold, exhausting) night out under the stars in Dead Man's Pass in Eastern Oregon (home of friendly cougars, bears and maybe wolves), i tore into my bike more thoroughly. Tank, gas & filters were clean, so I deduced that it was related to my ugly-looking boots. Intake boots, that is. I ended up removing the vacuum-actuated valve in the petcock. My thought is that a leaky boot was failing to keep enough suction on the valve, which in turn was cutting off my gas. Without the valve, i had no problems for the rest of my trip.

I have a new petcock already (NOT the crappy 80's version, thank God!) but am having trouble locating new boots. I found some used ones at a salvage yard on my trip, but at $20 each i'd like to check on new ones. If anyone knows where to buy them (or has more info to share) please do post.