1977 XS 750 Petcocks

[elbes14]

Just picked up a 77 XS 750 sweet deal should make a nice little cafe project.

Question I have is can I use manual petcocks on it in place of the stock ones?
whats the real point of the vacuum hose on them? can you just have a gravity feed to the carbs?

 

[bryanjnkns]

The vacuum is for automatic shut off. Most of the time they wear out and need to be repaired or replaced with manual.

 

[elbes14]

So only benefit of the vacuum is the auto shutoff? I could put manual ones on and turn them off myself with no issue on fuel delivery.
Also would there be an issue with blocking one off and use one petcock with a splitter instead of 2 leads off the tank?

 

[bryanjnkns]

yep, i run manuals on mine. You wouldn't want to block one off though. I'd still use two. If you block one off then you won't be using half the gas in your tank.(depending on the tank) You might be able to run two lines to a splitter and a single shut off valve. never tried it myself

 

[elbes14]

Ahhh so I take it there is a divider inside the tank sectioning off each side. Manuals it is then I'm going to look into that single shutoff idea should be able to fab something up. I've been reading a few threads on getting rid of the points and going with a more updated system. Any thoughts on that?