What's my next move?

[pres589]

I've been having fuel starvation issues basically since I got my GS a couple months ago.  Intermittent, although they would show up at higher speeds, like 70 mph or so.  Sometimes the bike would come out of it just by my closing the throttle and letting the bike "pull" the engine for a while, then open it back up and I could at least get home.  Last weekend the bike left me stuck on the shoulder for a good 20 minutes before fuel would enter the add-on filter I had on the bike.  After much thought and chatter, I pulled that filter, rand a single piece of 5/16th fuel line from the frame petcock to the carb inlet, and left the frame petcock on PRI. 

Had a great week of riding to and from work, and that includes some time at 70mph or so.  Even though I was getting over some "trust issues" with the bike, it seemed to run well and no starves any time.  You can probably see what is about to happen next.

Taking the bike out today, it started farting, barking through the exhausts, and intermittently not responding to throttle.  I swear, aloud in my helmet, and get the bike off of the highway I'm on.  By the bottom of the off ramp I can tell the motor isn't helping move me along and in fact, I clutch in, and it stumbles to nothing.  Coast to a stop and walk the bike to a safe spot, wait a while, and try it.  Fires right up.  I get about 10 blocks and it's dead.  Wait 5 minutes, fire up, go a ways, and dead again.  I got back home with the thing by using this wait and go method.  At home I look at the clear lines going to the frame mounted petcock.  I can see on the main inlet there's a little crud at the bottom of the hose.  I assume the tank filter is plugged.  But I drain the tank through that hose and the gas looks pretty clean.  There was a gallon in tank and that fuel looks pretty good. 

I get the tank off and pull the tank petcock.  The filter looks pretty good.  I pull the tank petcock apart and there's a little crud in it but not a lot.  Definitely not a situation where the fuel flow would be noticeably constricted.  The gas drained well so I already wondered what was up.  I work through the thing with q-tips and carb cleaner, getting the passages nice and shiny.  The tank, I toss in a box of 600 brass BB's and shake the hell out of it.  Then I have to shake the hell out of it again to get them all out.  I then ran that gallon of gas through the tank, 1/2 at a time, and shake as much fuel out of the tank as I can to get all of the crud out.  The first half definitely came back nasty, it looked like a reddish version of iced tea.  The 1/2 half was a lot better.  It's dark out and I'm kind of tired of smelling gasoline tonight so I haven't touched the carbs yet, but I want to play with the jetting a little anyway so I'll probably get into them tomorrow and see how things are.

To those of you still reading this long winded thing, what should I do next?  I'm wondering about Kreem but it sounds like something that gets easily messed up and done wrong.  Any other decent options here?  When I look into the tank through the filler I don't see much of anything beyond clean grey tank innards.  And what about my starvation issues?  Alpha and I have discussed this and he seems to think that I can solve this with properly sized line all the way through and that's about it.  I will admit that I used some 1/4th inch line from the tank to the frame petcock since I couldn't find any 5/16th thin wall "motorcycle" fuel line when I beat on this thing in the past.  But I'd be kind of surprised if that 1/16th of an inch is to blame.  So, while I don't love the idea of spending a bunch on what should be a cheap thing to fix, I'm wondering about getting a Pingel and running line straight to the carbs with a quick disconnect in between to make it easy to fiddle with if I need to in the future.  I do like the idea of taking that goofball frame petcock out of the equation, and having a single fuel line down the carbs seems nice. 

Opinions are welcome.  Right now the tank is airing out on the back porch and I can't buy anything until Monday so this gives me some time to hash over my options.

[CirclesCenter]

Run the petcock on prime.

[pres589]

Run the petcock on prime.

Was using PRI all week long, pretty sure I was today as well. 

[pandy]

Sorry you're getting stuck.... You said you had a gallon of gas today....did you try filling up? My GS always looked like he had PLENTY of gas, but he would act up if I didn't fill up every 100 miles....just another idea.... 

(And I had to run him on PRI whenever I was at freeway speeds, too.)

[pres589]

You said you had a gallon of gas today....did you try filling up?

No, I was more concerned with just getting home.  I didn't try reserve, I guess that should have happened.  But shouldn't a gallon be enough to keep me off of reserve?  I know it was a gallon because the containers I'm draining into are 1.75 liter rum bottles (no, I do not recommend this, and I know it's not the best container to use inre: safety, but I"m not pouring old fuel into my good gas can) and it completely filled one and filled the other one to the bottom of the neck. 

I'm kind of to the point where I want to stomp out any possible problem with the fuel system, as it's been a real pain in my ass since I got the bike, and if the thing is apart now then it seems like a great time to finally cure whatever it's ills are.

[pandy]

Yes, there SHOULD be enough gas, but my Baby G just never followed the rules. 

[Mk1inCali]

Just go buy some cheapo tubing from your local shop, plumb it in straight from the tank on/off to the carb T.  I got rid of my frame petcock a while back and I'd never go back.  It always was screwing with how it rode on the freeway, and caused more stuff than what I knew about...once I went straight thru, it solved quite a few little nagging problems that I had no idea what was going on.



I'd re-do the BBs in the tank to make sure you get out all of the possible flakes.  Also, ditch the fuel filter, or replace it with a whole new assembly.


Make sure your vacuum hoses are correct as well, can throw it off.

[pantablo]

it'll hit reserve with a gallon or more of gas in the tank...it will look half full when it needs to go to reserve...keep an eye on mileage, not fuel level in tank.

[pres589]

it'll hit reserve with a gallon or more of gas in the tank...it will look half full when it needs to go to reserve...keep an eye on mileage, not fuel level in tank.

Mileage has been fairly crap since I rejetted, down in the low 30's, going to try and attack that this coming week since we've got a couple rainy days coming and I've no rain gear to ride to work in, nor do I want to deal with that if I don't have to.  Going a single step smaller on both main and idle jets, and I've got new NGK plus waiting for it as well. 

No one has talked about the Kreem or Not to Kreem question I asked, what's your take?  Anyone?  Srinath goes on point in an old post of his saying, I think, that he would use BB's and then slosh a bunch of diesel fuel around in there to finish the job off, and not Kreem.  Is that accurate?  Maybe he can come out of the woodwork and answer this himself, now that I've uttered his name in this thread.

[pantablo]

I think the BB's were more a way for him to "sandblast" the interior of the tank a bit. I dont think thats a replacement for the kreem, just his misguided interim step...I say misguided only because

[pres589]

Just go buy some cheapo tubing from your local shop, plumb it in straight from the tank on/off to the carb T.  I got rid of my frame petcock a while back and I'd never go back.  It always was screwing with how it rode on the freeway, and caused more stuff than what I knew about...once I went straight thru, it solved quite a few little nagging problems that I had no idea what was going on.

I'd re-do the BBs in the tank to make sure you get out all of the possible flakes.  Also, ditch the fuel filter, or replace it with a whole new assembly.

Make sure your vacuum hoses are correct as well, can throw it off.

Not too many vacuum hoses to lose track of here, since I've got exactly 1 on the bike, for the frame petcock pull-off.   

How are you handling the dual outlets from the tank petcock?  A Y shaped T just seems sloppy but it's the only clean solution I can think of, save for epoxying a bolt into the top of the drop on the mains side to plug it off. 

A Pingel sure sounds neater than the ideas running through my head now. 

[tussey]

I'm not quite sure, as I'm drunk but did you clean your carbs? 

[pres589]

I'm not quite sure, as I'm drunk but did you clean your carbs?

No, that's for tomorrow.  There were a ton of fumes from all the spilt fuel out there that I was going to get a headache if I stayed and worked on it.  I'm curious what's waiting for me in there.

[ducati_nolan]

It dosen't sound like the rust is really your problem if it isn't plugging up yours screen, but it may be screwing up your carbs, so I guess you'll see once you tear those apart. I think that a Kreme job would be a good idea. If you mix everything right and do the propper prep work, you shouldn't have a problem. I don't know why you'd consider using diesel  that seems like it wouldn't do any good and could cause some problems.

Your best bet would probally be to use a different petcock. So many people have had problems with the stock one, it just seems to make sense to toss it and get something better. I've been lucky with mine so far, but if I ever have any problems with it, it's going in the trash.

I wouldn't use the 1/4" fuel line, just to eliminate that as a potential problem and make sure to run an inline filter with all that rust.
Good luck 

[Wrecent_Wryder]

U6

[Wrecent_Wryder]

[7

[pres589]

[
There is no way, I don't think, that the jetting could be so far off as to drop the mileage to the "low 30's" and the bike would still run. I'd bet real money that there's something else wrong, something else that happened during the rejet. Are those tiny little donut o-rings in place? Proper size shims on the needles (especially for the '01+)? Vacuum hoses tight?  Slide daiiphragms seated correctly and not torn? Check the obvious first.

You know, I do wonder about the shims I put on the needles, if they aren't quite the right size or some such.  Think I may just remove them.  The rest of it I feel pretty confident that they're ok, I inspected the diaphragms  thoroughly and replaced the tiny o-rings with new parts from Suzuki.  Still figure it could use a new set of plugs, god only knows how old the installed ones are.