An Idea for a Reserve Tank

[drawkward]

I was trying to think of a way to put a reserve on my scoot. I drew up a diagram of what I think might work. Let me know what you think.

PS. I have no idea if this would work.

Link to diagram below.

imgur.com/H7O78.png

[Fox]

That'll work but you should run it out at least once a month and re-fill with fresh gas.

[90GTVert]

Welcome to the site.

Nice diagram, but there is an easier way. You can find petcocks that have Main/Reserve/Off selections. Sorry, my diagram isn't is nice as yours...

[drawkward]

Hey thanks! Lots of great info here. Keep up the good work!

So yeah. I like your idea too, much simpler and probably less expensive. The only reason I liked my idea a little better was the inline reserve tank. This gives you a full reserve all the time no matter what, while you only have to "fill one tank".

Just wondering if it would work, and are there in-line gas tanks that are bottle shaped or small rectangular? I was thinking a reserve tank that looked like an over sized Clear View Filter. That'd be hot, with chrome petcocks and a normal Clear View Filter. Oh and shiny hose clamps to secure the whole setup to frame.

Would be nice.

[90GTVert]

I can't say I've seen inline reserve tanks like you want, but if you look hard enough I'm sure you could find something that would work.

If you really don't want to have an extra tank to fill up there is another option. You could modify a stock gas tank to have a reserve like a lot of big bikes have. It would be more complex than the other methods, but very clean. The real downside is that you'd need to be able to weld or pay someone to do the welding and since it's a fuel tank it's safest with a brand new tank that's never had fuel in it.

You'd have a pipe welded in that protrudes an inch or so into the fuel tank as shown in the diagram. That would be your main fuel supply. The stock fuel supply in the bottom of the tank would be your reserve supply. As long as the fuel was above the level shown in the diagram below you'd be running on the main supply and if you ran out of fuel you'd switch to reserve and know that you needed to get to a gas station soon. Use a petcock and setup otherwise like I mentioned earlier. This way the only thing you have to find room for is an extra fuel hose and the new petcock. If you decided you didn't like the reserve setup, just leave the petcock on the reserve position all the time and it's just like the stock setup.

[Fox]

Right! And the fact that it's single tank means it won't go stale on you.

[drawkward]

That seems like the cleanest option, by far. I have a cheap welder, and I've dabbled a bit. I just don't feel confident welding something thats going to be holding fuel. Exhaust I am OK with, combustable and volatile fuel - nah I'm good. (:

I think we could make it even simpler than that though. I was searching fuel cut off's on Google Shopping and I came across some motorcycle petcocks that hooked directly to the tank. I think they were for Harleys? They had a built on reserve tube. Pretty slick, but very expensive.

Thanks for the help guys, but I think I'm going to just go the traditional route and buy a 1 gallon red carry tank. Just strapped for cash, and gotta get this scooter ready for spring. Money is going towards more essential hardware.

If someone read this later and gets inspired -- Post us some pictures!