I just got back from a fun 2 mile walk with my bike

About 2K miles ago my bike died with all the tall tale signs of a faulty fuel pump. I ordered new contacts and replaced. The bike ran great for a while and even pulled 80.26 hp on the dyno (not bad for a 13 yr old stock bike)..... until today. The same signs happened again, the bike bogged down, died, and would not start back up with a smell of gas.

I'm guessing the contacts should last longer then 2K miles so what else should I be looking at? Is there a fuse for the fuel pump? I'm lost, any help would be great.

I'm on my way to get a case of Tecate cause I think I'm going to be spending this beautiful day in the garage

 

you can run a line directly from your tank to your engine and bypass the filter and pump to figure out if its the fuel pump directly... i had the same problem and it was because the filter wasn't meant for my bike and a few hundred miles and it slowly put too much of a strain on the pump.

hope that helps.

EDIT: not alot of people know this, but the fuel pump isn't totally needed, as a matter of fact my friend next door has an f2 with no pump (or alternator) for track and it runs beautifully

 

When I first had these problems I ran a line from my tank to the carbs and it ran, not great, but it ran. After replacing the contacts it ran great again, so it seems like something else is going wrong in the system and that's whats confusing me.

I don't have any charging problems but could it be my r/r?

spicymeowmix, what filter are you talking about? air, oil, fuel?

 

it was a generic crappy fuel filter in line putting too much strain on the pump.
believe it or not i use a lawnmower one that works awesome now lol.

you'd know if it was your r/r,
this seems directly related to the fuel line or relays...

when you said it ran... did it run and not cut off?

This is IDoDirts specialty, you might wanna run him a PM... he knows those pumps well, and knows a great deal more than I do... but the pump can and will shut off if there's a problem / kink / clock / etc in the fuel line... and it's happened to me before... it was a pain in the *** to find out the root of the problems, but i did... trial and error.

 

Thanks for the help spicymeowmix! I sent IDoDirt a PM as well. I took the tank off and hooked it directly to the carbs and she started right up. Now I for sure know that its a fuel problem, I just need to figure out who the culprit is

I pulled the tube running to the carbs while it was still attached to the pump, turned on the bike, and very little gas came out (maybe a couple of drops). So now I just have to figure out if its the pump or the relay!

One step closer haha

 

nice, keep us posted!

 

while the bike is running (if you can get it running long enough), put your hand on the fuel pump, you should be able to feel it pumping... like a heartbeat... it will beat 1-2 seconds. not a great test, but you should be able to feel it. also if your fuel filter is clear, you can see the fuel "pump" every 1-2 seconds with a little surge of fuel coming into it.

 

never hurts to put a new filter on there, and blow out the lines!
your pump might have new contacts, but that doesn't mean it's not straining to get fuel out and working too hard

 

I replied to the PM.

I'll mention something here that bears repeating. These bikes are not fuel injected. When you turn on a fuel injected bike, it has to pressurize the fuel rail that supplies the injectors. Without that pressure, the injectors don't squirt fuel into the throttle body. On our bikes, the bowls on the carburetors already have fuel in them, you just have to choke if it's cold to add a little bit of fuel. So, when you turn on the key to our bikes, the fuel pump doesn't turn on. It only starts running when the engine is running. Don't expect fuel to flow out the hose when you turn the key on, or you're going to think the pump or relay is bad.

 

dirt this is semi related, but does the fuel filter matter as far as parts go? i have a "generic" highflow one, which I hoped wouldn't stress my pump... I don't know much about the filters in general, would you recommend one? My f2 buddy and I used a lawnmower one for quite some time, but I wouldn't wanna use one that would damage my pump