zanniek's Forum Comments
Showing all comments by zanniek.
Is my math correct?
In cars the fuel is drawn from the bottom of the tank. If there's sediment, it's going to be drawn in whether you run your tank dry or not.
That's actually a good thing. It keeps the sediment from just building up and building up until one day you really do need to use that last drop of fuel and it's so full of crap it doesn't burn or clogs the fuel lines or something.
Motorcyclists with a reserve tank have to be more careful about it, since under normal operation the fuel is not drawn from quite the bottom of the tank.
posted by zanniek October 18, 2008 at 5:06 PM
What is FULL on a motorcycle tank?
I put my bike on its center stand to fill it, and fill it until the gas just touches the filler neck.
You can splash gas in your face whether you're sitting on the bike or not (DAMHIK) but if you're on the bike while filling up, there is a much higher risk of spilling gas all over your crotch. A friend of mine did that and then came to a party reeking of gas... it was so awful I asked the host to please lend him a pair of pants.
posted by zanniek October 18, 2008 at 4:56 PM
Reserve Miles for Motorcycles
I prefer to run my gas down to reserve, and to push past reserve a bit when I feel I can safely. For example, if I hit reserve on the way to work, I usually fuel up at the station near my house when I get home in the evening.
The reason I like to run it as close to dry as I safely can is that sediment collects in the bottom of the gas tank over time. When you switch to reserve, you get that sediment in the gas that goes to your engine. If you hit reserve frequently, there's just a little bit of sediment each time, and it doesn't cause any problems. But if you always fill up before you hit reserve, you just keep collecting sediment. Then one day you're really in a bind and you have to use reserve, only it's now all full of gunk that clogs up your carbs. (Not sure of effect with fuel injection.)
The calculation is just the reserve tank size times the MPG. If the reserve tank is a half gallon it's pretty simple, but the size varies. This really is not a high priority issue, but for me it would be a definite "nice to have."
posted by zanniek September 7, 2008 at 7:27 PM
Correcting mistakes
I hereby suggest adding those descriptions to the "post new thread" page.
posted by zanniek August 22, 2008 at 12:23 AM
I did find the edit link after posting; thanks. (Would be convenient if there was a link to edit a fuel-up immediately after adding it, though.)
When you post a new thread in the forum, there's an input box for description, one for "more inside," and one for headline. I would get it if there were two boxes (one for subject, one for body, more or less) but with the three of them I find it confusing. I guess I'm not clear on the purpose of the description box, even now that I see where all of that data ended up in my post. (Live preview's pretty cool, though. Never seen anyone do that before.)
posted by zanniek August 21, 2008 at 10:05 PM