Anyone have any tricks for a fuel shutoff that takes a gorilla grip to turn. My wife ran out of gas the other day and wasn't able to turn the fuel shut off around to reserve, I turned it for her but I\d like to fix this up proper.Its just the stock fuel shut off on 89 heritage.

 

Yeah, we had that problem on Dr.Linda's bike. Exact same problem. I fixed it with a Pingle petcock. That one is so easy to use you can flip it with your (or her) pinky. Get it from Jireh for half what the indy's will charge you.

Then I converted the bike to EFI, so it has a fuel pump now and we don't have to turn the gas off ever. Oh well.

 

Pinkie-friendly Pingel here too! Darned expensive, but v good.

 

Mine got stiff, that fine redish/brown junk that makes it past the filter in the tank gets in the petcock causing it to get stiff and actually wears it. I cleaned mine out and it turns fine, but the wear marks in the drum let some fuel slip by and it does not have a reserve.

Forget buying the 20-30 dollar aftermarket ones, today's fuel eats the gaskets after awhile. I hear the pingle is good but I see threads here and there about their gaskets going bad. The way I see it, my OEM one lasted about 14+ years and it costs about the same as a pingle...

I'm getting another oem...

Doug

 

Had the same issue on my `89, it was hard to turn soon after I bought the bike (new). Pingel cured the problem.

 

+1 on the Pingel. Never had a problem, but then I never put ethanol in it either....

 

Here is one more vote for Pingle.

 

heres a freebie for ya. my bike is an 89 also, was so hard you couldnt turn it. i took one of the screws out of it (one of the two as you look at it from the side) and placed a very small washer between the body of the petcock, and the outer portion. this made it turn just like new, no leaks, and it was FREE! one year so far, no problems

 

Ethanol in the gas will cause the rubber gasket inside the petcock to swell up at first, then it will break down the rubber and cause small particles to get into the fuel line...An in-line filter helps but is a stop-gap measure. Like already stated, the Pingel petcocks are already set up for Ethanol gas.

The accelerator pump diaphrams in the S&S "E" will also break down due to Ethanol after at least 2-yrs....Learned that the hard way!!!

 

Pingel...