Kawasaki ER5 fuel tap precaution

[@coley38772]

Subscribed, had an er5 for just over a week after 7 years away from 2 wheels, came on u tube to get a clue on these dodgy fuel taps. Turns out your doing to your er5 what I want to do to mine! Rat it! Like what your doing. 👍👍

[@deepspace_motorcycle]

Glad you found the channel and thank you for the subscribe! They're perfect bikes for ratting and they lend themselves really well to that style i reckon. It's a good precaution to put that tap in; just be careful which one you buy as i tried a couple of cheaper ones before i settled on that heavy duty one. It's good piece of mind i reckon.

[@phungyi4947]

Good idea, I was considering adding an extra tap also. That said, I've just replaced my petcock internals with a new parts mini-kit off eBay.

[@deepspace_motorcycle]

It's a good extra to have on there for peace of mind, even if your vacuum tap is good. But if you've only just refurbished your stock tap it's probably belt and braces!

[@motorcyclerescuer]

Spot on mate

[@deepspace_motorcycle]

Thanks dude! All I need now is some hot weather to heat the line up so I can get that hose back off the tap again lol

[@TomBartram-b1c]

Nice mod. A previous owner of my er5 simply replaced the oe petcock with a manual on off tap with the result that I have no reserve function. The one snag with your tap is that it's on the throttle side hence difficult to turn when you inevitably ride off having forgotten to turn the petrol back on! The tap on these is identical to that on the gt550 (and probably other kwaks for that matter) but this problem seems specific to the er5. Strange.

[@deepspace_motorcycle]

Yes it's odd that it seems to be specific to the er5 .... Character I suppose right! Does the normal tap completely replacing the petcock work ok then? I'd be worried about removing the vacuum element of the system as these bikes don't have a fuel pump. I didn't try it that way as I thought it would be like running on prime the whole time but thank you for confirming it does work! Agreed on forgetting to turn on! Always seems to start to flake out at the worst moment when that happens too 🤣

[@TomBartram-b1c]

@@deepspace_motorcycle I've been thinking about this and all these kwaks have the same petcock but don't have the same carbs. And that's where the fault must be. If the vac valve fails on the gt550 you don't even notice because the float valves do their work. Yet a float valve is so simple how the h could anyone design it badly? When i used to have Superdreams they had plain on/ off/reserve taps and you relied exclusively on the float valves, never a problem. You were meant to turn off the petrol as a precaution but nobody ever did so. Same with the Jawas i own now. Am thinking of installing an after -market inline diaphragm but there's not much space in there hence your tap on the other side.

[@deepspace_motorcycle]

I agree. When you think about how long that ER5 engine ran for in various versions too it's weird they didn't sort it. They tweaked other stuff within the various reworkings of the er5 but never seemed to really get on top of it. I suppose every bike has something!

[@flavoursonly]

Quick question, thanks for this, bought an er5 recently, runs spot on it’s a cafe conversion that’s someone’s done a lot of tinkering but no history and I’m an all year rider so want to be ahead of the game for when it fails not if, lol. How would you know if your fuel tap has failed? With your set up, and the original. Does fuel leak out from the housing itself? Or? What are the symptoms ? Cheers

[@deepspace_motorcycle]

Nice one on the purchase! I always thought the er5 makes a lovely cafe racer. It's a cracking choice for an all year rounder, too. I was lucky that my original petcock never actually failed, but I was so paranoid that I fitted that precautionary measure as I read so many warning tales. From what I could gather online you don't get much of a warning until the tap has failed and fuel has overspilled into the air box and contaminated the oil itself afterwards. I used to keep an eye on the oil inspection window. Might be worth a delve on an online forum with that question; there must be folks that have found the hard way! The other precaution that I took was to fit a voltmeter (simple digital readout on the dash) just to watch for voltage spikes when running as I know the rectifier/regulator is another common fail on them.

[@Nashy76]

So, I have a 96 zx7r and my L shape pipe came off refitting a tube. The O ring is missing. Was yours merely held in by the friction of the O ring. Are these merely press fit? Where do you get O rings. I've seen tap repair kits but they don't have the small o ring.

[@deepspace_motorcycle]

hey, yes that one did seem to be literally held in by the friction from the O ring. Certainly when it went back in again it didn't feel 'right' you know? It must have been though as it stayed intact. I've since changed bikes and no longer have a tap system, so not too sure on where to source replacements I'm afraid.