My '96 F3 is having a fuel delivery problem. After about 100 miles on a full tank (or roughly 1/4 tank left based on my most recent nightime visual inspection when it died several miles from home), the bike stalls and refuses to restart. Switching to the reserve doesn't do the trick either despite innumberable attempts to restart with it on reserve. I've replaced the fuel filter but that's not the answer. A mechanic insists that my fuel switch is working properly too when he checked it out one day. Of course, if I fill the tank back up the bike runs great again (for about 100 miles). Any ideas for the most likely cause?

Also, how long should the bike continue to run once you throw the fuel switch to OFF (switch horizontal)? I've waited 2 minutes and it keeps on running (at idle), which makes me think the switch really isn't working...

Thanks for any ideas.

 

hmmm....sounds a little odd. First of all I wouls suspect that you should be able to go further than 100 miles before hitting reserve (I get about over 210 kms or about 135 miles) before hitting reserve on the street andfar longer on the highway. As for once you hit the reserve setting (afterrunning out of gas) it does take a few minutes andsome cranking to get it started again. I have only run out once (I got to know the feeling of when it was starting to get starved and switch to reserve before the bike actually dies now) but when I did it takk afew minutes for the float bowls to refill and the system to prime itself agian so I would say atleast 2 minutes and several attempts with the starter before it fired.

As for the idle...well 2 minutes on the float bowls isn't that bad. I would have to guess mine would idle about the smae time with full bowls before running out but I have never really timed it. I do know that when the fuel is turned off and it is idling I get sort of a clicking sound that gets louder as it gets more starved for fuel (I assume it is the fuel lines forming a vacuum but not 100% sure)

Dennis

 

Well as for the fuel limes making noise as you run it out of gas, that would probably be your fuel pump going crazy as its getting air bubbles and such (NOT good for a fuel pump)
And in my opinion, your (tr2) fuel pump is worn out. When you have a full tank, the tank basically pressurizes the fuel lines due to gravity, but when you hit 1/4 tank you dont have anywhere near the pressure, and if your fuel pump isnt working to suck the rest of that fuel out, there might not be enough pressure to run the bike.
I could be wrong, but experience and that piece of meat between my ears makes me think i'm right.

 

Exactly what Ta8218 said... gravity will feed the fuel until it gets down to about a 1/4 tank because the fuel pump is shot.

That's exactly what I was told by a Honda mechanic that found me stranded on my F2, he was out for a ride of his own and just happened to come across me. The funny thing is that he insisted I had a fuel pump, where in reality my bike is an F2 with a vacuum system.

 

Thanks for everybody's thoughts. I think I'll replace the fuel pump and see if that fixes the problem. When the bike was running properly I got right around 135 miles on a tank before needing to switch to the reserve. Thanks again for your input, and I'll post whether the problem is fixed to complete this thread for future reference.

 

Some interesting numbers there - I get about 170 to 180 km on a tank before switching to reserve, and that's now that I've got my fuel system working well.....or so I thought.