Motorcycle Safety & Driveability: Motorcycle stalled going 55-60mph, fuel, stall

Question
Hello, my 2001 Honda Shadow with 6k miles on it began to stall and eventually turned off while I was riding it. I was sort of low on gas since the tank holds 2 gallons/2.9 with reserve and immediately after the incident I filled it up at a gas tank and got 1.8 gallons in it. I was riding when I felt the motorcycle jerk and the throttle lose power. I was going somewhere between 55-60mph while working the throttle to stabilize control.

Thanks for your time.

Answer
I am not good at troubleshooting and mechanical work, but it sounds like you have a contaminated fuel system. I recommend you dump out your gas tank (you can safely put the gas into your car), pour a small amount of fresh fuel into the tank, swish it around, then dump it out again. Then you'll have to go through all the components (petcock, fuel lines, fuel filter) that get fuel from the tank to the carbs and clean those out, too. Use a spray carb cleaner for these components, and blow them out/dry them out good with compressed air. Then fill up the tank with fresh gas and dump in one of those fuel system cleaners like Sea-Foam to get at any residue that may be left behind. With a small gas tank, you won't use the whole can of Sea Foam, you'll only use a small bit of it.

Hopefully that will solve the problem. If not, your next step will be to pull apart the carbs and get them cleaned up, too.

Motorcycle engines, being small, high performance machines, are very susceptible to even the smallest bit of dirt or gunk. And by going through your fuel delivery system carefully, you may uncover the real problem, if it's not just gunk in your fuel.

Last, read up on winterizing your bike to make sure there is no detail you're overlooking. Fuel goes bad and gums up engine components during storage, so there are precautions you should take.

Pat