EX500 Fuel Reserve Question

QKENUF4U said:

i think hes saying the dirt and crap will settle over the filter on the RESERVE tube. as for the gas, there is NO DIFFERENCE, its all the same gas. i will agree if hes talking about dirt etc. clogging the filter.

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QKENUF4U is a professional motorcycle mechanic. I'm a shade-tree mechanic. So if someone's wrong, it's probably me.

He's right that there is only one tank, so any fuel in the bottom of the tank will tend to mix with the new gas you put in. He's also right that there are two separate tubes that let the fuel run down to the carbs. The "ON" tube is pretty close to the bottom of the tank. The "RES" tube is even closer. Stock 250R's have a screen, but they do not have a fuel filter. The screen lets just about everything pass through -- right to the carbs. But the carbs have some tiny passages that could get clogged. I don't know if the 500R's have a fuel filter. But it is easy to install an in-line fuel filter. It's about $2.50 and five minutes of work.

What I meant in that earlier post was that since that junk is in the tank, and since there is only one direction for it to go, I think it's better to work it through a little at a time rather than all at once.

I don't think it's necessary to go to reserve on every tank, but I do think it's nice to do it once in a while. And I also think it's very important to install a fuel filter to avoid a lot of headaches.

If you ever take a gas tank off a car and dump out the gas, you'd be amazed at how dirty it is. But cars go through more gas than bikes do, and they have flat-bottom tanks, which tend to collect more sediment. So maybe I'm worrying about nothing.

Narcisse91 said:

I had to use my reserve for the first time in about a year last night, and I had a hard time getting the bike to run on the reserve fuel (it wouldn't idle right, or die as soon as I got on the gas). After about 5 minutes of fussing with it on the side of a highway at 11pm, I finally got it running.

I assumed I had all this trouble because the gas was seperated and old. Any other reason why it would act this way on reserve? Last time I used the reserve, it fired right back up and I was on my way.

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It could be that this had nothing to do with the age or cleanliness of your fuel. It could be that since you so rarely use reserve, you just weren't used to the first sign (lack of power), so you just gave it more gas until it quit altogether. By then your carbs were empty. So you had to get them filled up before it would start again. If you flip the reserve at the first sign of power loss, and while the bike is still running, your carbs won't empty out and you can keep going without missing a beat.
Curt