innacurate fuel guage.

[madcow]

after being in the panel shop fot 7 weeks my nomad (99 model) now seems to have a very irregular fuel guage. its reading empty after only 100ks (160 miles) is there any way to fix it again?. it would have sat for a long time with no fuel in the tank.

[ringadingh]

Originally Posted by madcow

after being in the panel shop fot 7 weeks my nomad (99 model) now seems to have a very irregular fuel guage. its reading empty after only 100ks (160 miles) is there any way to fix it again?. it would have sat for a long time with no fuel in the tank.

100km is only 63 miles, if you were going 160 miles on a tank that would be great on a 99. Im not sure if bending the float arm may fix it, its possible that its stuck while the tank was being handled in the paint shop. See if you can fish around with a coat hanger abit to see if its moving freely.

[trosco]

No offense Ring but those things are very very delicate. I don't think it can be reached with a coat hanger but I wouldn't fish around in tank or tug on it or anything in tank with a coat hanger.

If it got gummed up siting empty I would run a couple tanks of fuel with 10-15% alcohol (Gasahol here in the states) if that's avail down under. If not put a can of Berrymans fuel system cleaner (I think seaforms about the same thing) in it with a full tank and see it that un sticks it.

Or just set you trip meter when you fill up.

[macmac]

The choices are fix it, de-gook it, and forget it... I would forget it and set the trip meter.

Maybe that way it will fix itself and if not who cares. These fuulish things are the work of the Devil. No one needs a gas gauge on the bike.

2 trip meters would have been better. One for the trip and the other for gas.

[madcow]

thanks for the replies guys, i will try some fuel conditioner and see how she goes. the guage is working but drops to empty after 100ks (60miles). the trip meter dosent really help me much as my milage can range from 220-150ks per tank epending on how and who i am riding with. an a lot of the places i go there is no or very few servos to find fuel. its a real bugger as my guage was incredibly accurate before all this.

[macmac]

Well I am old school and never bother with the gauge.. I stricktly run by the trip meter.

I must have missed why your bike was in the shop. Why was that, and what for?

Are you saying the gauge reads empty with about 1/2 tank of fuel? That it reads full when it is full?

The internal tank sender is likey to be messed up.

This can happen a few ways, but some of these might not be possible with all systyem in general and I have no idea how this set up really is.

Some systems use a hollow float and it can break open and fill up to sink, but that can't be this..

Other systems run a solid float which can soak up fuel and so sink anyway, but I don't think this is it either.

I am not sure if your gauge reads full when it is and then around 1/2 a tank it reads too low, but if that is the thing, then there is probably a reisitor board and slider, and the wires on the board are in a rats nest.

The slider and time can cut these wiresm and they turn into a rats nest literally. There tends to be more wear from 1/2 tank levels and down, because of fuel sloshing around.

The float jumps up and down a lot but the system has resistors to slow the action on the gauge, so the needle won't bounce..

So I am not too sure cleaning with fuel additivies is going to work.

Probably the pump and gauge unit will need to be removed and have a hard look at.

But I have no idea why the bike was in the shop either and so all of this could be wrong. I don't even know what the pump and sender look like..

[madcow]

the bike was in the shop for a respray. it reads full when the tank is full and reads empty at approx half a tank

[nomad561]

Originally Posted by madcow

the bike was in the shop for a respray. it reads full when the tank is full and reads empty at approx half a tank

Same color or new paint?
Let see some pics.

[macmac]

I have the idea the resistor board on the sender unit in the tank is frizzed wire..

I have seen this before on cars. The float rides in a track where the resistior board is. There are several way to make these, and eack one is different of course from another brand, but they all work more or less the same way.

The more resistance the higher the level reads, as the float moved down with fuel the gauges read lower of course, but when the resistor board is ruined the wires go crazy and come loose and then the sender hits too many wire wraps and goes to ground, which read empty, before the tank really is.

Hang tight I'll just start swimming...

Now I might be wrong, but to find out is to remove the fuel pump and sender and see.

This is a delicate part, so be gentle.

[madcow]

sounds like i need to get a workshop manual. i take it the pump and sender is in the tank?. thanks for the help mac, its very appreciated. you need to swim over here for a holliday, i will put you up and show you around...

the respray is back in the factory colors, i love the green too much. although it would have been faster and easier to do a color change as you cant buy the color in australia.

[macmac]

Yeah if you sit on the bike and get off on the left side, then look up under the tank there you will see the screws holding the plate the fuel pump is mounted too.

You would want very little to no fuel in the tank, in the over all view of things.. it really sucks you have new paint and this problem right now.

The tank really needs to come off the bike and be placed on soft clean rags to do this sort of thing.

That is the way i would want to do it any way.

Just maybe, you can pull off the left side air filter, all of it, if it is still there... I mean right down to the backing plate, all off the bike.

Then with very little fuel in the tank, which I don't know how to get done, pull the fuel line at the tank.

Now i forget if this bike is carbed or injected.... If it is injected you simply pinch the 2 gray clips on the pump fitting and pull the line off... The injected set up will leak one drop of fuel if any.

I don't know if the carbed bikes have a check valve or not. If not that is a good way to drain the system, but still only so far.. !!!!!!

I always perfer the tank OFF the bike so I can dump any fuel out the filler cap.

Before i do any of this I try to get the fuel over the hump on the tank as well so it is one the side where the petcock would be on a carbed bike.

Usually I try to have the bike as low on fuel as i can get it before I begin any work like this too.

Anyway if you think the gas level is low enough you might try a cheat, out in the wide open...

Have several clean cheap white bath towels around, and place them on the engine below the fuel pump plate as surely this cheat is going to drop a large quantiy of gas on the ground and on the engine. Tuck these towels under the tank on top of the engine to act like a wick and get them gone on some tree branch to dry far away from any sources of flames and sparks.

With the tank still bolted on the bike loosen the pump plate all around. Then one by one pull all the screws out. Maybe you can then drop the whole unit, which you will have unplugged from the wire harness some time ago AND As long ago, perhaps the very first thing you do besides remove the seat DISCONNECT the GROUND cable from the battery!

This seems like more text, meaning more time, that it really is.

With the bloody pump in hand things should seem better. Just place it on the bench for now and get the rest of the fuel out of that tank! With a clean white rag stuff it in the big hole where the pump was, and mop up in there...

Then get away and go look and see if the sender and float are fubarred. I think if you look hard you will see problems. The float will have some form of contacts with a resistor which is varriable, and at some point it has to be broken.

This is my scarey part, I do this all the time in fuel but it scares me to tell of it, when i can't be in controll.

In the past I have been known to make up a temp plate to seal off the gas tank too! This is a hunk of sheetmetal I can make to seal the tank with. maybe 4 bolts hold it, and I use cork or thick paper as a gasket to seal in fumes.

This allows to put the wiring all back on and hand move the float.

You would seal the tank so no sparks can set the whole thing off and so no big BOOM see?

With the ground cable it is the first wiire to come off and ALWAYS the last to go back on. !!!!!!

So then you can put a box, or bucket near the bike to set the pump on, connect its wires again and LAST install the ground cable. Then you can test the sender, taking care to not bend any setting/adjusting tabs, and work the float up as if there was gas and down as if there wasn't.

Like I said I could be wrong too... And at this point if I am there is another ballast resistor somewhere on the bike, and then it has to be bad, but I don't think there is, and I think the pump slider resistor will have some defect you can see by eye.

That might be a broken fastener, so the slider malfunctions, or the resistor borad moves when it should not, or the wires are cut and in a swirlly mess, and the contact hits too many wires all in a fubbar knott.

That means disorder in wires.. a really nasty mess of wires, nothing like they should be.

The float will have a wire contact follower of some sort, and maybe that is what is broken too. I have no clue what these parts might look like, I just know there is a 95% chance that one item in there isn't working right.

The resistor board sort of looks like a mini toaster with wire zigzagging back and forth and a slide track will be on it. The follower in my past acts like a knife and cuts these wires, or the follower gets caught up and twists.

[macmac]

Part 2.... I got interuppted.

So you can see why I like the tanl off the bike upside down on a well padded and clean bench. Do not allow fuel to be on new paint for over a instant.

If tme has past enough and you can wax???? this paint do so, as that is one way to see where any fuel spill landed on new paint. The wax isn't much protection, but is more of a tell tale....

The good part is the tank can be far away from the battery and other wiring, making any testing much safer. The gas cap will still leak fuel upside down, so the need to transfer fuel into a legal gas jug still applies.

If you can buy a work shop biik for this bike from Clymers I would do so first. These aftermarket books take a while to get made, but it has been long enough. I like this book better than most any other books and Haines is my 2nd favorite. Haines is written in English English and Clymers is American English.

Many Clymer books have in color wiring digrames which I like best. Both books have black and white photos showing more detail than the funky drawings Ma Kawii gives us.

In fact the factory books are some of the most usless crap I ever saw in print for any work shop book, and cost way too much money for the way things are expressed. And the factory books are loaded with more errors than any other books i ever saw so far..

The factory books I have get a D grade fer dunce!

[macmac]

Ok I was in the book I have for 2000. I recieved that with my 01 bike.

This book shows a bad diagram with the sender in the tank and not mounted to the same plate the fuel pump is on.

Now i can't recall if my 01 1500 has two plates you could remove or not. I had that bike 361 days before it was stolen.

In any case you need to pull the tank and see if there is 2 plates. The smaller of the two would be the fuel sender unit.

If you like with the tank at least lifted, if you see this 2nd smaller plate, you would be able to follow wires to the first connector about near there.

If you want you can pretend the tank is full by bending a paper clip into a U shape. With the key on stuff the paper clip back stabbing the connector.

To pretend the tank is empty you pull that connector apart.

Alot of good that does huh? That sort of simulates OFF don't it? ::)

[Yellow Jacket]

For what it's worth, (which may not be very much since this is for a 1600 and may not apply to the 1500) here is the procedure to check the fuel level sensor for proper functioning. You will need an ohm meter to do this check. A cheap multi-meter for about $25 or so should be sufficient. (Comes in handy for a lot of stuff if you don't have one already.)

Note that with the float all the way up (full) the resistance should be 3 - 5 ohms.

With the float all the way down (empty) the resistance should be 213 - 219 ohms.

Also, as you move the float from full to empty the resistance should increase smoothly with no sudden jumps.

Hopefully, the 1500's use the same fuel sensor as the 1600's. If not, it should still be similar.

[macmac]

Bob whole other animal...... i think. The 2000 book is completely different. The pump isn't even one part with the sender.. The diagram is pitifull, no photo, no real drawing, the sender is a electrical image of a rectangle with the zig zag of a resistor with a line for the float stick and a small rectange to represent the float.

And then your diagram drawing is wrong too for the 1600, as the pump is more out of the mounting plate than in... That drawing isn't anything like my 1600 bike really is..

Does your pump look like the drawing?