Scary moment...

McBoney wrote: Hi all,

Went on the North Circular today to see a client today and just on the section leading up to the Blackwall Tunnel, ... it cut out. No emergency strip, just the road and then a bank with grass and trees.

Three lane highway, trucks passing me barely 50cm away from my right leg at 50mph. It wouldn't start. I pushed it 500 yards to a section where I could get away from the traffic. Parked up and had a closer look. The glass fuel filter was empty. Fiddled a bit with the pipe and then the fuel started running again. I waited until the floats were full and presto, it went again. I hopped on thinking I managed to shift a bit of dirt. Fuel gauge told me there was half a tank.

2 miles on, same thing happened. I managed to reach (pushed again - heavy things these bikes!) a petrol station and opened the tank - no petrol left whatsoever!

So: gauge faulty.

As the tank is from that bike I have fitted a standard fuel sender from a 2006 Kawasaki Zephyr 1100, and linked that to the Acewell digital speedo. The Acewell manual is translated from Chinese and therefore difficult to follow.

Settings in the Acewell menu for the fuel gauge are: Off, -100, -250, -500, Res.

No idea what these mean. 'Off' is obvious, but any other setting shows half a tank when empty and a full tank when full...

Anyone has any idea? I now know what mileage I can do with a full tank, so can keep an eye out on that, but I really don't want to repeat my experience again.

Cheers
Paul

Hi Paul,

Did you think about changing the fuel petcock valve for one with reserve ?
Always good to have and will give you a real warning before you completely dry

Eran

McBoney wrote: if I take the sender out, can I measure the resistance, just to make sure?

Yes I don't see why not, measure the resistances with the float at both extremes of travel

ahem :blush: :blush:

Obviously I overlooked the different measurement units! Apologies.

I have some fettling to do over X-mas and that will allow me to take the tank off and inspect and measure the fuel sender....

The -100 setting on the Acewell shows a full tank... but it is full at the moment. I'll keep an eye on the gauge and the miles travelled.

Thanks all.
Paul

Phil wrote: They refer to ohms, from memory our bike's fuel sender is zero to 100 ohms in operation? Not sure what the sender resistance range is for a Zephyr, you'd have to do a bit of delving. When I set my Acewell to the "100" range (I still have the original Z1300 sender) it shows a full tank fine but then flashes empty with still half a tank left ...go figure

Ok, drained the tank and measured the resistance of the fuel level sender. When empty it reads 20 and when full (turned the empty tank upside down) it reads 98. The Acewell set to 100 (not -100!) then flashes empty, and when upside down 5 out of 6 bars full.

That'll do.

But, another thing I learnt; the new petcock I got has a vacuum switch which I had not connected as I had not realised it had one when installing it, so I could only get petrol through on PRI, which was not marked on the petcock as PRI, just a * (I did think that a little strange, but I was excited to get the bike running, so left it - lesson learnt: don't leave stuff you are not 100% happy with!)

Now that has been rectified, I should have a working RES to get me to a petrol station... hopefully no more scary moments like this!

"Now that has been rectified, I should have a working RES to get me to a petrol station... hopefully no more scary moments like this!"

I'd make a test hit with a gallon of petrol strapped somewhere...

Ok, I put the empty tank back on the bike. Then switched the bike on so the Acewell was recording an empty tank (one bar flashing). Then started putting in petrol. The bar went solid after 5 litres, and then to two bars after about 7 litres.

The vacuum petcock works a treat, so now I have a 'working' reserve setting (PRI bypasses the reserve level, so when I was empty whilst running on PRI setting, I was really empty!) )and I also know when the bar starts flashing, I have 5 litres left in the tank.

Next time the weather allows a ride I will fill up completely and see what it says...

Cheers

Paul