My wife ran out of gas ( 05/ 883) on I 485 not good , the reserve only went 2 - 3 miles .Is this normal for the smallstock tanks to get so kittke miles on reserve .We were riding in a charity and traffic was bas ,real luckythat she didnt get hit . What could the problem be,

 

Well, with a peanut tank you should get at least 20 miles crusing at highway speed. If your sitting in stop & go traffic as you hint at it could be 1 mile. If your not moving your not going to get any miles.

 

A little unusual. I usually run out and have to switch over to reserve at around 120 miles, give or take some. I have had to switch over with as little as 90 miles going at a high rate of speed and against the wind. The reserve usually gives me about an additional 20-30 miles to go until drybut, that also depends on the conditions of the road and traffic to deal with.

 

I've gone between 9 and 31 miles on reserve before I got to a gas station with my 3.3 gallon tank. Something must be wrong because you should have a reserve of roughly8/10ths of agallon. I don't care how fast you're going or how much traffic you're in, that's a lot of gas and it should get you a lot further than 2-3 miles! My guess is the petcock's primary hole is too low on your wife's bike. Not unheard of,not very safe, and certainly not very convenient! I am assuming you haven't altered the position of the tank, front of the bike, or rear of the bike. I mention this because a friend of mine back in the '60's raised the front of the tank on his BSA (chopper wannabe)and his reserve virtually became nonexistent.