1986 Shadow VT500 fuel and petcock issues

[jacatro]

OK-
To start my tale of woe-yes its an old bike-
YES it sat for many years, I pulled it out of the shed in 2005, had everything restored-carb, forks, tires, brakes etc etc-
It ran well until 2 years ago, when it started getting cranky on starting and a bit of fuel leak from the carb-its a second bike, admittedly not enough miles-
I put it in in August to a local shop-he said the fuel petcock was bad, PLUS there was rust in the gas tank, and it needed an acid bath to clean it out-
3 MONTHS LATER...and 750 bucks-I got it back-he said tank cleaned new battery, new petcock carb rebuilt.
Right away i had a battery issue, but after waiting 3 months, decided to take care of that myself in the spring. Stored it.
This week nice weather had me grab a battery and take it out-right away I noticed the bolt holding the battery door was stripped-that annoyed me, but I put the charger on it, intending to ride over and have him fix it-
I got the bike started and about half a gallon of gas gushed out the bottom onto my shoes and driveway-
I called (angrily) and was told some nonsense about a different type of petcock that needs to be shut off every time-
What say you?
I cant get the darn thing started now for more than a minute, and a couple of random backfires-
BTW-my other bike is a 2006 Shadow Aero-no such nonsence re the petcock, but a friend of mine has an 87 Goldwing he says has the same shutoff deal-

[ernie12b]

The VT500 has a vacuum operated fuel shutoff valve. a rebuild kit runs 20something bucks on eBay. I personally would get the old one back it only takes15 min to install the rebuild kit if the valve is off the bike. Did the fuelover fill the crank case and blow out the breather tube? The fuel should notspill out no matter what valve is installed. I suspect the floats in the carbs are mostlikely not adjusted correctly. If your breather hose is attached to the airbox the way it is supposed to be, you may have filled the airbox with gas and oil.

[jacatro]

Thanks and an update-I installed the new battery, so was able to start it-its leaking gas (Spilling gas) with the valve in the OFF position-Note (20/20 is hindsight) that when I picked it up, his mechanic had the thing on RES and told me I had to put gas in, after it had come from the body shop- I hate to think that a) this local mechanic has suddenly gone corrupt or
B) He simply thinks that as a woman, I what? Wont notice?
He's picking up the bike in the morning and will no doubt find a list of 'new' things wrong with it-but he's not getting another penny-
a friend suspects a broken fuel line-
BTW- this is the shape Ive always kept the bike in-its never been abused in any way...

1986 Honda Shadow VT500 - YouTube

1986 Honda Shadow VT500 - YouTube

[ernie12b]

nice bike. I don't see many VT500s so prety. He better get it rite this time.