Sudden loss of power and shutdown.....

[Smitty161]

I was heading back to Salt Lake City from a four day trip through Colorado and the bike shutdown. I was heading north on I-15, our major north/south route, with afternoon rush hour traffick. In the fastlane at about 80-85 and the bike stopped responding to throttle. Had to stop on the left side of this four laner with not much room to do even that. Cars whipping by merely inches away. I now have a new found respect for our Highway Patrol. One car did a slow down manuver to four lanes so I could push my bike to the right side. Our Highway Incident Command wanted my bike off the highway so I pushed that sucker 3/4 of a mile to the next ramp. Have I mentioned the muscle pump I got from that.

 

Long story short.....friends called.....bike trailered.....all because of a clogged fuel filter. This filter had less than a year on it and only 7,000 miles. How long should they last? Our local yamaha guy told me to pay better attention to buying good quality gas. My neck of the woods that would be Chevron. Priciest too...go figure.

 

Anyway.....it put me in a dangerous situation with some huffing and puffing to boot.....lesson learned on doing a complete check of the bike before a long trip out of town.

[flb_78]

83 model bike and plugging up fuel filters?

 

Sounds like you need to pull the tank and Kreem it.

[Snaggletooth]

All I'm going to say is this. Pull your seat off and remove the fuel level sending unit. All you need is a 10mm wrench to remove the four bolts that mount it. Take a good long look in you tank and check around the fuel petcock on the right side.

 

I just went through this myself. My filter, only a 5,000 miles on a new one clogged up completley. When I checked the tank I found the pickup screens to the petcock pickup pipes were completely shot. Everything in the tank was going directly to the filter.

 

I never suspected rust in my tank as the filler area looked really good. The bottom of the tank was pretty nasty. Not heavy rust, but enough to flake off particals into the fuel system.

 

It's worth a look. I replaced the petcock, (got lucky at Pinwalls: $9.95 compared to $85.00 for a new one), every fuel line and used an epoxy sealer to coat the tank interior.

 

That may be the root of your problem. Mine was an '84 with 52,000 miles on it.

 

If you find the need to clean the tank and a possible reseal on the tank let me know and I'll tell you what I can on how I did mine. Worked out great for about $65.00 total.

 

Mike

[Smitty161]

Thanks guys.....Looks like I will be looking inside my tank within the next fews days. Only 44,000 miles on bike but 26 years on all the parts .

Did I mention that I forgot how well this bike can perform when you deliver all the fuel it needs. I fell in love all over again .

Thanks Snaggle, I will get back to ya.....

[Condor]

Long story short.....friends called.....bike trailered.....all because of a clogged fuel filter. This filter had less than a year on it and only 7,000 miles. How long should they last? Our local yamaha guy told me to pay better attention to buying good quality gas.

 

Be thankful the filter stopped the crud. It coulda been worse with the stuff getting into the carbs. A fillup of bad gas might be the culprit. Especially if you search around for the cheapest gas, or fill up a the 7-11 convience store pumps. Sometimes they don't run their fuel thru good enough or any filters. Drain the tank and take a good look at what's still left. Off color, water, and cloudy it was the gas, rust flakes and it's the tank. Next time buy your fuel at a brand station. When buying 4 gallons of gas, what are you saving $.80 cents maybe?? Cheap price to pay for peace of mind.

[Smitty161]

Thanx Condor.....all good advice.....crud in the carbs.....never even considered the possibility. Want to avoid that! Save a penny, spend a pound. I'm learning...thanx again everyone!!!

 

Be three to four days before I can look in the tank. Guess I could cut open the old filter, just for fun.

[Snaggletooth]

You might be surprised at what you find in a filter. I change mine every spring when I do my preseason oil change. Never found anything much to worry about until this time. The filter in the pic was new in April this year and completely clogged by August with rust.

 

I'm trying the glass body filter with the replaceable filter element for now. At least I'm able to see if anything is coming into the system early.

 

The pic of the inside of the tank was after the epoxy treatment. You can see the shine on the surface. The interior surface of the tank still has rust on it but the epoxy bonds so well to the metal that it feels like the inside of a Thermos bottle. I've pulled my fuel level sending unit twice since the treatment just to check and there is nothing at all loose in the tank. Nothing showing in the filter. The treatment worked very well.

 

I did have to pull my carbs and open up my fuel pump to clean them. I had rust particles all through the system.

[Smitty161]

Gosh, I hope I do not have all that crud. I know just enough mechanical stuff to be dangerous to myself and my friends. Opening up the carbs worries the begezas out of me. Did you have symptoms or did you just figure with all the mess you went down the line cleaning.

 

When I open my filter tomorrow I will post pics.

[Snaggletooth]

I was on my way back home from a long ride for the day. I started to notice the revs were not dropping back down like the should and then a carb started to overflow from a a vent. Tapping on the carbs got the overflow stopped and the revs back down.

 

Classic stuck float problem ya know. LOL! Problem was the floats and needles were all new and the carbs had been cleaned and adjusted in the spring. Shouldn't have been happening at all.

 

Got the bike started again and in another 20 minutes the bike was gagging from fuel starvation. By then I was close to home, about 15 miles so I just kept the revs up and got her back to the garage. I couldn't start it again.

 

I started the trouble shooting thing with the fuel pump and it was working. When I pulled the feed line off the input there was very little fuel running out of it, just dripping. Kind of surprised me as about then I remembered I had not shut off the petcock and should have been scrambling to shut it off. So then on to the filter which as you know, was the current issue. So the next morning I opened the tank and saw the problem.

 

If you had any particles getting past the filter and into the carbs and clogging the float needle the odds are pretty good you would have had some overflow from the vents. From what you described you may be ok on that. Cut the filter open and take a look at what you find. A look into the tank though the sending unit hole will tell you a lot.

 

Like Condor said drain the tank, just shut it off and remove the fuel line and replace it with a section of line to run into a container so you can take a look at what comes out.

 

Also open the drains on the fuel bowls on the carbs into a glass and see what comes out of them.

 

A load of bad fuel could have been the cause. Hopefully. One thing that I have seen in the past is problems at the pumps. If you pull into a gas stop and see a tanker filling the stations storage tanks, keep going to another fuel stop. You can't even imagine how much junk gets stirred up in the storage tanks when they fill them. Not a good time to gas up.

 

Keep us posted on what you find. If you find your self in the position to need to get into the tank to treat it I can loan you a set of block off plates I made to seal the tanks sending unit and petcock holes during the sealer process.

 

Mike

[Ivan]

Snaggletooth, what kind of tank treatment did you use?

[Snaggletooth]

Hey Ivan

 

I chose a phenol novolac epoxy that Caswells carriers. They have it in a kit form for a fair price and it is tough stuff. I've used this type before for potting electronic projects and was familiar with it. Stands up to about everything.

 

Beats the daylights out of Kreem and other latex products and with the process to prep the tank it's pretty much a sure shot at getting it right.

 

Check out their site. http://www.caswellplating.com/aids/epoxygas.htm