
This is what happened to my mistress during
a rainstorm we had recently in Durban.......
Before the storm I had about 3 ltrs of petrol in the tank,
and after the storm I ended up with 5 ltrs of water and 3 ltrs
of spoiled petrol.
The question remains "How could the rainwater get in to my tank" ?
In my humble opinion, there's only one way how the water could get
in-to the tank and that's via the filler
cap. When thousands of ltrs of water get dropped on your bike in a
very short time, the water flows via the slits between the seats
into the rubber cover around the filler cap. The drain, at the
bottom of the rubber cover is to narrow to drain the water off
quickly, and fills up in an instant, allowing the water
freely to enter the tank via the filler cap.
TIPS FOR THE TECHNICALLY IMPAIRED VMAXERS
How to drain the Carbs & Tank:
* THE TANK
(Instead of draining the tank by taking off the Petrol Meter
Sender Unit at the bottom of the tank, I drained the tank with the
petrol pump and took the risk that a bit of a water-petrol mixture
might remain at the bottom of the tank)
Unbolt the petrol pump, located behind the airfilter under the
fake-petrol- tank-cover release mechanism. Take off the Overflow
Pipe from the RADIATOR HOLDING TANK RESERVOIR and fit to the pipe
on the petrol pump that leads to the carburettors. Turn-on the
ignition key and, voila, you are on your way. The pump will only
pump for a few seconds, so you continuously have to turn the
ignition key on-off.
To rinse the tank, I put in 2 litres of petrol and pumped that out
as well.
* THE CARBS
You will find the small drain plugs on the right-hand side of each
carburettor, easily accessible, no need to remove any parts.
SEE PIC BELOW !

I filled the tank with fresh petrol, switched-on the ignition
and drained, via the carb drainage plugs, an amount
of liquid, which I guessed, to be equal to the amount of petrol
retained in the pipes from the tank to the carbs and in the carbs
floating chambers.
PS. Don't forget to clean your spark
plugs as they have become wet too. When I removed my plugs they
all had a drop of water between the contact points.
Hans Knop
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