I had thought that maybe I could run the bike for short hops around town with the fuel pump cutoff relay jumper installed; I was wrong. Yesterday the pump burned out 3-miles from the house. 🙄

I see some threads here talking about guys with similar fuel system problems going to a gravity-feed setup on their older bikes...I understand that high-performance would likely be out of the question, but since the pump is part of a low-pressure carburetor-feeding system, is that something that will generally work on my F3?

 

Going gravity fed will be ok for low to mid speeds. But you will experience issues when you run the the bike up on the upper end of things.

 

Thanks! 👍 I haven't given up on fixing the problem, I just have more pressing life issues at the moment. I have the .PDF Manual and when I have a chance I'll take it to staples and print a copy of all ~325 pages.

As far as "upper end of things," what RPM rate do you think that might be? Freeway speed (65mph) = ~5,000 RPM. If the tank is kept relatively topped off, will the gravity-feed setup generally work up in that range? 🤔

 

Yes, when you are pulling hard through the gears or when you get to interstate speeds people who have gone to gravity fed on the f3 have reported fuel starvation. I don’t think that fuel tank will fix the issue, but it certainly won’t hurt.

 

Adding simple step to fix this issue permanently in less than 5-minute:

measure how much current fuel-pump relay has to flow when it's connected!

Melting is usually sign of too much load. So measure actual load! Relay is 20-amp unit, and if it's melting, it's obviously flowing more. Measure and determine exactly how much. Then measure currently flow at various junctions after relay and specifically, right at fuel-pump connector. You may find there's wiring-short along way that's sucking up 25-amps and pump is only using 2-amps. Only way to know for sure is to measure!