Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Gas left on or off?

When I know it will be awhile before I ride my 04 America I generally turn off the gas and let it run the carbs dry before putting it up. The time before last that I re-started it, it was very cold natured taking several crank sessions to fire and it even ran on one cylinder a bit before making a big pop and firing on both. Today I went out to start it again and realized I had not run it dry or even turned off the gas the last time several weeks ago, and this time it fired on the second crank and ran on both cylinders; granted it was 60 degrees today and it had been 40 the last time when it was so hard to start, but now I wonder about shutting off the gas.

S0...what to you guys do when your carb America will sit awhile? Run the gas out or just turn it off. Turn the gas tap off or leave it on? What will make it start best the next time?

I always , no matter how long it might sit, turn my gas off then switch off my ignition. No real wait time or anything just the amount of time it takes my hand to get from the valve to the key. Always done this, always will. Important to turn the gas off, if a float sticks open you will not fill your crankcase with gas or spill all over the floor possibly causing a fire.

With the reconstituted Goat P!ss they call Gas nowadays, and its affinity to leave varnish and create gum, running your carbs dry, for an extended, park it time makes sense, even opening the valves at the bottom of the float bowls too. We The People, are getting screwed bad with this EPA/alcohol edict, but we gotta save the planet from AGW err,ahh.. I mean climate change, Right?

If its going to sit for longer than a month then ill turn it off and drain the carbs bowls.
If its going to sit longer than a couple months and I know it, I will drain the tank as well as the carbs and dump it in the car.
If its only gonna sit a few days then I leave it on.

Like Ian, I always turn the petcock off at the end of the day. (But I think it's more to do with dealing with our old scoots and habit than anything else.) My America and my other bikes get rode even in the winter, once in a while, but sit as long as two months at times. Never have run the gas out of the carbs as long as I've ridden bikes.(35 years) Never had any problem. I have occasionally emptied the tank out if a bike has set for a really long time, say, 4 months or so. But that's just cause I'm being real careful.

I'll usually close the petcock as I pull into the condo development. I don't drain the whole bowl, from the entrance to my garage, but I figure it doesn't hurt.

I always heard it's better to leave the tank full over the winter, so I topped it off back in October or November and mixed in a little Seafoam. I did the same thing when I was gone for 3 months last summer.

She was a little slow to fire up back in early January, but she did start up. She's running fine now. I'm trying to ride and burn up the old fuel so I can get some fresh stuff in there. Forecast looks hopeful to finally do it this weekend. I'll throw in some more Seafoam as well.

It's only the old school, gravity-feed, petcocks that need turned off
every time. But if I was going to let my bike sit for awhile,
I would put Sta-Bil in the tank.

An empty tank will rust inside faster than a full one and it is smart to always shut the fuel off when bike is parked for any time. If by some chance the float needle was to stick, say maybe because of the junk fuel we are buying, you would load up the carbs and at a min not start or worse yet the infamous backfire into airbox and damage done there. Bottom line is that it is always better to shut fuel off.

always turn mine off after the end of a day, never leave my tank empty, i am guilty though of leaving the bowls full at the end of the year but i will run sea foam or fuel stabilizer through the system first.

I always turn the gas off prior to shutting the engine off. Work requires I travel for extended periods, and then I run the bike with the gas off until the engine dies, and then I drain the carb bowls. I have found from experience that draining the bowls makes a big difference. When I don't drain the bowls and I am gone for more than 3 or 4 weeks the bike is very hard to start. If I drain the bowls the bike starts like I had been riding daily.