Fuel tap on or off?

[FruitLooPs]

I always turn it off these days, after bending a rod on my GSXR750 from bad floats and non vacuum petcock I learnt the hard way.. Pulled engine and replaced rod reassembled it, replacing the float valves all for two seconds to switch it off. I know what i'm doing. But yeah, if you aren't aware of a leak but have one, its probable you won't hydrolock it like me but you still end up diluting your oil pretty well which is bad for bearings, overpressure crankcase etc

I turned the taps off on my 2-strokes too, same reason - don't want a crankcase full of gas.

If you have a vacuum assisted tap and know your float valves are sound I wouldn't bother, and I would think that new fuel injected bikes are pretty much foolproof.

[fliplid]

I didn't use to bother but one fine morning I hit the starter on the Ducati I used to own and what seemed to be a litre of fuel fired out the exhaust pipe, it was caused by a needle and seat letting fuel leak past and filling up the bottom cylinder head, I was damn lucky it didn't hydraulic

Had a similar mishap with me ancient 400/4- kicked the fekker over and oil/fuel pissed out of the crank breather... Pretty rainbow splash over the pavement outside me house... D'oh!

[Old Steve]

I turned my fuel tap off a couple of weeks ago when I removed the tank and checked the plugs. Didn't check my manual when I turned it back on, and set it on 'reserve'.

Couple of days ago my motor spluttered and stopped, I'd known I was low on fuel but thought I would have the reserve. Couldn't start her after turning the tap the other way. Luckily I was just outside a service station, so pushed her across the road and filled her up and set the fuel tap to 'on' and carried on my way.

But, no, I don't turn the fuel tap off.