Fuel issues

[vannlater]

Hi.
I am curious, does the v-max use a lot of fuel on "normal" driving ?
I feel like I need to stop to refuel all the time.
The funny thing is that I seem to have full tank after filling approx 12 l of fuel.
I have a 96 V-max 1200 but It cannot be correct that the tank is that small ?

Another issue that is more serious ; since there is no indicator how much fuel I actually have left, I usually drive until the fuel light turns red. Then I stop to refuel. A few days ago my bike "died" on the highway and I had to pull over as soon as possible avoiding getting run pver by cars. The fuel light was not on.
I tried to start the bike a few times and the fuel light came on. OK, soon out of fuel I managed to stop and refuel.
Last day I was going for a ride, no fuel ligh was lid. My friend stopped for gas and when I started my bike my light came on showing it was time to fuel.

I cannot thrust the indicator at all. Do others have the same issue ? Any tips what to do ? Maybe there is an indicator I can install to be able to see the amount of fuel on the bike ?

Since I am going on a long travel this summer I need to come up with some sort of solution. It won't work to stop on all gas stations on the way

Last question ; is there some sort of reserve tank for the fuel ? I remeber I had a switch on my old Shadow to switch over for the reserve tank when low on fuel.

 

[naughtyG]

Hi,

the reserve switch is on the right-hand switch gear on the handle bars - next to the Start button. You usually leave it on the ON position until the fuel light comes on, at which point you switch it to RES (reserve).

The fuel tank holds 4 US gallons (15 litres) of gas, of which 0.8 Gal (3 litres) is the reserve. It is a stupidly small tank, and a lot of people fit bigger or auxiliary tanks when touring, or carry a can.

With normal riding, you should get about 90-100 miles (145-160 km) until the reserve light comes on. Remember it takes a while to fill the tank all the way up to get the full 15 litres in - you need to squirt slowly at the end.

The way the reserve works is, when ON the fuel pump sucks fuel until the reserve sensor in the tank shuts it off as the red fuel light comes on. At this time you switch to RES, which restarts the fuel pump. The fuel light will stay on all the time from when the tank has less than 3 litres left in it. If you don't switch to RES, the bike will die as the fuel pump stops.

Hope this helps.

 

[4gasem]

You really need to go by the odometer which is the device that tells you how many miles or kms you've driven. Tuned up well you should be able to hit the high 30's to low 40's in MPG or 48 to low/mid 60 kms per gallon or 4 liters of fuel so that's 12-16 KPL Kms per Liter. Check my math... I suck at it! lol

Does that help?

If you your bike is poorly tuned, that number can be MUCH lower.

Give us a list of your mods and we can help you some if you like.

Chris

 

[Miles Long]

Like others that have commented on the subject, I too am a tad uncomfortable with the electrically operated fuel system , since I am as old as dirt, and was weaned on bikes with that old reliable under- the- tank mechanical three postion switch. However,once I had an understanding about how the fuel reserve system worked (thanks to the many posts re this subject), I got in the habit of starting the bike with the fuel switch in the reserve position, prior to a day's run, even with a full tank of gas. If the bike is still running smoothly following warm up( maybe two minutes or so), this verifies that the reserve position is in fact operating the pump. If O.K., the switch then goes back to the run position. Better to find out the reserve is not working while the bike is still in the garage (in most cases), rather than on the highway, perhaps in the rain, and miles from a gas station.
Cheers, Miles

 

[vannlater]

Thanks for all the answers.
I found the swich finally as you described so now I am ready for long trips.
Not sure how much fuel my bike actually use (no mods at all) so next time I refuel I will take notice. The reason I think it use a lot of fuel in first place is because the other onces I drive with doesnt have to refill half as much as I do.
But I will take notice next time I fill up.

 

[gunrunner]

Thanks for all the answers.
I found the swich finally as you described so now I am ready for long trips.
Not sure how much fuel my bike actually use (no mods at all) so next time I refuel I will take notice. The reason I think it use a lot of fuel in first place is because the other onces I drive with doesnt have to refill half as much as I do.
But I will take notice next time I fill up.

Resetting the tripmeter is a must everytime you fill up . That and switching that switch back to on . I finally got to 200kms before the red light went on the other day i put that up to using t boost , it seems to be more economical . :clapping:

 

[vannlater]

Funny thing happened to me yesterday after a lon trip. The fuel indicator came on, I switched on to reserve and everything seemed normal. After some few minutes the bike died and I had a hard time starting it again. Drove some few meters and it died again. Even harder to start this time (only able to start the bike when in neutral. Is that normal ?). The bike ran very poorly until I was able to refill again. From my understanding it should run smoothly since the reserve is about 3 l of fuel.

 

[naughtyG]

It's possible that the fuel at the bottom of your tank has a lot of water or sediment in it, especially if it contains ethanol in Norway.

You could try draining your tank (next time it's near empty) as it has a drain bolt at its bottom, and see if that helps.

 

[davidon]

I'm still having problems with my reserve sensor. I put a new one in and it still seems to fail to come on when it's supposed to.

 

[[email protected]]

Funny thing happened to me yesterday after a lon trip. The fuel indicator came on, I switched on to reserve and everything seemed normal. After some few minutes the bike died and I had a hard time starting it again. Drove some few meters and it died again. Even harder to start this time (only able to start the bike when in neutral. Is that normal ?). The bike ran very poorly until I was able to refill again. From my understanding it should run smoothly since the reserve is about 3 l of fuel.

Are you sure you're using the switch correctly? Lots of guys get confused with it. The "On" position is for normal riding. When the light comes on you switch it to the "Res" position. Or is it the other way :biglaugh:?

 

[gamorg02]

ON is ON. RES is RES

 

[Redbone]

The fuel tank is 4 gallons.
If you have it set to "ON" you will use 3.2 gallons of the 4 gallons. Once you use the 3.2 gallons the bike will quit running unless you move the switch over to "RES". When you move it over to "RES" it will use the remaining .8 gallons of fuel before the bike will quit running, totally out of fuel.
If you have set to "RES" it will use 4.0 gallons of fuel then the bike will quit running, totally out of fuel.
It took me many tankfuls of gas before I was able to get this clear in my head but now it is easy if I remember to switch it from "RES" to "ON" while refueling and reset the tripmeter to zero. If I do forget I will try to check just after leaving the station to make sure the sitch is in the "ON" positioin and the tripmeter is reset to zero miles.

 

[vannlater]

Yupp, the switch is always on when riding.
I saw some info on youtube from the newest version of the v-max, and it seems like that model has both a fuel indicator (showing how much fuel there is left) and a reserve fuel indicator. If that is correct, shouldn't it be possible to install on my bike too ?

 

[vannlater]

Should be possible ? I really miss an indicator.....can't trust the distance