This may be a stupid question.. maybe not.. here it goes..
A few days ago I filled my tank and drove aprox 250 Kms (this is the typical milage of my cbr600 F3) at wgich point I ran out of gas... so I thought... no problem, I'll switch to "reserve".. I did.. but nothing... there was no gas at all in my reserve tank !!!! I was on the skinny shoulder of the highway... police came and had to wait for my ex wife to come to bring me gas.... anyways, my question is: Why there was NO gas in the reserve tank ?.. was it because I had use the bike already using the reserve tank ?.. how does the reserve gets filled ? Any help will be greatly appreciatted .. Thanks.

Max.

 

maybe you had the petcock the wrong way? Or its broken allowing it to be on "reserve" and letting it use all the fuel.

 

I think u have to have the **** up when u fill the tank, then move to middle while riding then to bottom when u need the reserve. If you never moved it to up then the tank didn't get filled. Thats how I understand that it works. I just got my f3 so I can't tell you for sure.

 

When the lever is up, fuel is on. When it points to the front fuel is off, and when it points down reserve is on.

 

:/

There is no "reserve tank." You have one big gas tank, with two pipes in it. One extends about 2 inches up (I think), and the other is just slightly higher than the bottom of the tank. Both of these then run to the petcock, which selects between the two. The higher pipe is your "Fuel" setting, while the short is your "Reserve." This is done for two reasons:

1. Your bike has no fuel gauge. By forcing you to go "reserve," the bike is letting you know that you need to put some gas in soon.
2. Over time, particulates can start hanging around on the bottom of the tank. Also, water floats to the top of it. By having the non-reserve pipe sit a couple of inches off the bottom, you avoid sucking in all the crap on the bottom, but also don't get the watered-down gas until the end. When you hit reserve, and then run it dry, you risk sucking all that schmootz into your engine (though there is a filter in place).

Here are a couple of scenarios that would have led to your situation;

1. As the "Fuel" and "Reserve" notations are on the top and bottom of the petcock, you may have accidentally set the bike to "Reserve" in the fisrt place. This would have caused you to just run through every last bit of gas in your tank, without anything telling you you're low.
2. Your reserve line is clogged with schmootz.

 

I love the technical terms that we use. LOL

 

I've tasted it, man. It's schmootz.

 

hahhahaha your ex wife had to bring you gas... so how did that go?

 

Well, Johnnyx, thanks... the "schmootz" explanation sound just about right... I will be disassembling the tank and doing a deep clean...

And yes, my exwife brought the gas.. after I waited for 45 minutes in an almost unexistent shoulder of the highway with the police behind my bike deviating traffic so I wouldn't become one of those videos in tv "disaster on the highway"..
She was so mad at me..... as usual.....

 

Max, lets not get carried away here... When you put the gas in it did it ride fine ? Look, you made a simple mistake and ran out of gas. No big deal. Just chalk it up to experience and now you'll be more aware of how the fuel petcock works. There's no reason to do anything to your tank.

Unless there is something really bad with your tank, like rust or heavy corrosion, I'd be surprised if you had anything more than maybe a couple of grains of sand in the bottom of your tank. Before you take your tank off, ride the bike until your're low on gas, get a flashlight and look down inside your tank and see if there is anything inside to worry about. Then if it's bad, you can do your flush and cleaning.