Out of gas.

[Sarris]

Man, that petcock position always looks backassward to me as well. Suzuki in their infinite wisdom........

:lol:

[Orpheus]

Originally Posted by Easy Rider

It is also possible that you didn't get it switched over fast enough. If it dies completely, it may take a good LONG minute to get the fuel flowing good again. Switch to PRIme and count slowly to 100 BEFORE you touch the starter.

This is probably the problem; I figured that switching to prime would just dump fuel and I'd instantly be able to start it. I'm sure that I keep the petcock pointed at "on" (as shown in the picture a few responses before) and this seems like the most likely solution. Thanks.

[Badbob]

Originally Posted by Sarris

Man, that petcock position always looks backassward to me as well. Suzuki in their infinite wisdom........

:lol:

It is almost the reverse of my other bike. I second the backassward.

[mrlmd1]

Not to add insult to injury, but if you look at that picture of the gas valve a few posts back, there is an arrow on the large handle pointing to what it is doing, and it's quite clearly spelled out in the owners manual if anybody ever reads these things.
But just looking at it, it could be confusing without a closer look.

[Rudeboy]

twice I have run out of gas on the GZ
both times I had the petcock in the proper position.
the second time I intentionally ran out of gas while set to ON to test the petcock
after switching to the RES the bike did not run.
I coasted down the road to a safe spot to pull off.
The bike would not restart in RES position or PRIME position

Today I will be removing the petcock to check it out.
my question is
Does the GZ use the old method of a standpipe inside the tank for the main?
or is there some other complicated method that they have come up with?

[Rudeboy]

here are the results incase anyone else runs into the same problem

yes the GZ does use a traditional standpipe
this means that when the petcock is set to ON that the gas flows from the tank through a plastic pipe that is about 2 inches tall
when you switch to RES the gas flows from the very bottom of the tank.

IN my case, the reason I was running out of gas and not able to run at all on the RES was because the ON standpipe had fallen out of the hole it is forced into.
This means that it did not matter if I was set to ON or RES, I was always running off the bottom of the tank.
it might also account for some minor performance issues since the standpipe has a built in filter.

[Rudeboy]

this is the way it looked when I took it out



this is the way it should have looked

[patrick_777]

Great pictures and that's some good information to have. I'm glad you got it fixed.

My problem was that I was just switched to reserve, probably didn't switch back after filling up the last time. I remembered at this last fill-up though

[jonathan180iq]

No one has poster petcock photos yet. Thanks for that.

Those little screen filters are good for keeping out large particles. But, that's about it. I would suggest a replaceable inline filter as well. I have one. They only cost about $4 and do a fine job.

[ddoyle]

Originally Posted by Sarris

Been there, done that. I got kinda used to a fuel injected bike with a fuel guage or low fuel light. I ran out on my first tank on my GZ because the Suzuki dealer had it on reserve when I picked it up and I didn't check it. Thank the Lord that it stalled at an intersection with a gas station, so I rolled to the pump.

Very valuable lesson learned. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart.

LOL

:lol:

Looks like you bought yours from the same dealer as me. Yep, they told me the tank was full when I bought her (not!) and it was on reserve the whole time. My fault for not looking. Luckily I was on a side road near a gas station. The next time was on the highway at 65mph and I felt that hiccup....reached down to turn the valve to reserve and couldn't find it! (this was at 4:30 in the morning and luckily there was nobody behind me) Finally found it after slowing down to about 50....bit of a pucker factor there. Last time.....I fill up around 150 miles now.