Poorly vmax

redcobal · Apr 21, 2016

Hi there. I am new to the forum. Just bought my second v max, had one 5 years ago. This is a 2000 carbon one imported from Canada. Been laid up for 9 years but was put back on the road and had a carb clean by the former owner. First ride of 15 miles was fine until it lost power then stopped. Started again after 1 minute and got me 1 mile home but didn't seem to run perfectly as it had before.
Changed the fuel filter and air filter . Bike runs fine for 5 minutes then stops. if you leave it for five minutes it runs on a couple of cylinders for a minute or two, fuel pump seems to tick quite a lot (5 seconds) every time you turn on the ignition. It's had new plugs and the coils seem in very good condition. The bike has only done 5500 miles and has been stored inside, so no corrosion etc. It does seem to start after a fashion on full choke when hot. Surely this must be a fuel problem.
Any ideas guys?

blaxmax · Apr 21, 2016

redcobal said:
Hi there. I am new to the forum. Just bought my second v max, had one 5 years ago. This is a 2000 carbon one imported from Canada. Been laid up for 9 years but was put back on the road and had a carb clean by the former owner. First ride of 15 miles was fine until it lost power then stopped. Started again after 1 minute and got me 1 mile home but didn't seem to run perfectly as it had before.
Changed the fuel filter and air filter . Bike runs fine for 5 minutes then stops. if you leave it for five minutes it runs on a couple of cylinders for a minute or two, fuel pump seems to tick quite a lot (5 seconds) every time you turn on the ignition. It's had new plugs and the coils seem in very good condition. The bike has only done 5500 miles and has been stored inside, so no corrosion etc. It does seem to start after a fashion on full choke when hot. Surely this must be a fuel problem.
Any ideas guys?

Welcome to the forum, probably clogged carbs,try this----
http://vmax.lvlhead.com/tips/shotgun.htm

I would clean the tank, lines and filters too.

blaxmax · Apr 21, 2016

Man i love cornwall.

KDIMD · Apr 21, 2016

I had a similar problem. Turned out to be the fuel line had a small crack in it, part where it goes from the fuel tank and has a loop. Crack was on inside of it and allowed air in. Would start fine and run about 500 mtrs before dying.

blaxmax · Apr 21, 2016

KDIMD said:
I had a similar problem. Turned out to be the fuel line had a small crack in it, part where it goes from the fuel tank and has a loop. Crack was on inside of it and allowed air in. Would start fine and run about 500 mtrs before dying.

Mine too, lots of black crap from inside the hose. Changed both size hoses, stock filter replaced and cleaned additional inline filter.

redcobal · Apr 22, 2016

Thanks for the replies guys, and the nice comments about Cornwall! It's a nice place but a bit difficult to get bikes fixed! Palm Springs sounds pretty cool too
I'm away visiting grandchildren for four days but will get on with your suggestions next week

06VMAXIMUS · Apr 22, 2016

Could be the diaphrams in the fuel pump have become dislodged too. Do a search here on the forum, there are threads that talk about testing and disassembling the pump. And welcome to the forum!

jfeagins · Apr 22, 2016

Barry was having problems with fuel a couple weeks ago, and he found his newly restored bike had so much crud in the bottom of it's fuel tank that is was clogging the intake opening in the bottom of tank while riding. He had to drain fuel AND change his filter a couple of times to get it all cleared.

D-Max2012 · Apr 22, 2016

Did you happen to notice if it runs fine after being off for a few hours? Then, after warming it up, it starts to die out, then shuts off totally and won't start again, until it cools down?

sdt354 · Apr 22, 2016

KDIMD said:
I had a similar problem. Turned out to be the fuel line had a small crack in it, part where it goes from the fuel tank and has a loop. Crack was on inside of it and allowed air in. Would start fine and run about 500 mtrs before dying.

+1 and a good maintenance reminder. Changing the carb hoses is good preventive wrenching. They don't last forever. When I inspected mine, they were trashed inside. And hard as a brick.
Steve-o

redcobal · Apr 23, 2016

Re D-max2012 post. Yes that's pretty well what has happened so far

wildweasel_pt · Apr 23, 2016

redcobal said:
Re D-max2012 post. Yes that's pretty well what has happened so far

In that case check if it dies when the rad fan kicks in for cooling. If so you have a battery charging problem

redcobal · Apr 23, 2016

Re the post by D-max2012. Yes that's exactly what's happened

redcobal · Apr 23, 2016

Sorry for posting same message. No the bike never gets that hot on the gauge and the fan doesn't kick in. All this happens at about normal operating temp

blaxmax · Apr 23, 2016

Did you do a load test on the battery? And you may have to change out ALL the fuel lines and blow out that fuel pump.

redcobal · Apr 25, 2016

Well the mystery is solved! The pick up pipe in the tank was blocked. Just blew down the pipe really hard and it cleared with a pop. Siphoned all the fuel out and the fuel was clean apart from the remains of an insect or two that had got into the tank when the bike was laid up for 9 years!

blaxmax · Apr 25, 2016

That's called "getting the bugs out" :rofl_200:
Good news.

Traumahawk · Apr 25, 2016

redcobal said:
Well the mystery is solved! The pick up pipe in the tank was blocked. Just blew down the pipe really hard and it cleared with a pop. Siphoned all the fuel out and the fuel was clean apart from the remains of an insect or two that had got into the tank when the bike was laid up for 9 years!

Glad that it was something simple.

redcobal · May 2, 2016

Well the fuel starvation happened again!!! Nothing for it so I removed the tank and flushed it out. Got out more bits of insect and various bits of crap. I put carb cleaner down the pick up and drained through the drain plug and the fuel level sensor which had both been removed. Next I blew out the pipe with a compressor.
Hopefully this will sort the problem of the pick up pipe blocking.
My questions are: how the hell does the reserve switch work as there is only one pick up pipe. Also the tank pick up must be close to the bottom of the tank so I assume there is some form of gauze over it. Must say it makes the bike very vulnerable to dirty petrol as I think was the problem with mine as the tank is almost new

jfeagins · May 2, 2016

Have you rechecked your filter? If you had bug stuff in the bottom of the tank, blew it all loose, and didnt' get it all out, you could now have mega stuff sitting in a partially plugged fuel filter now.

Your level sensor simply tells the bike's fuel pump relay to shut off when it gets down to a certain level, and also turns on the reserve lamp. When you switch the res/on switch to res, you are simply bypassing that part of the relay & restarting your fuel pump....but now you know to head for a gas station.

Poorly vmax

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