Cause of the fuel pump failures

[orlean1]

Hi all I could not find is there a common cause of all these fuel pump failures is it a bad design, just a short life span of the product, or letting the fuel or pump get damaged. I'm trying to understand especially when I hear some of you just cruising down the highway and bike shuts off with no notification

 

Thanks

[Flyinfool]

While I have not had any issues with the fuel pump on the bike YET.........

In my truck that is also how the pump goes out, the engine simply shuts off like you turned the key off. After replacing a couple pumps at highway robbery rates I now change out fuel pumps as a normal maintenance item rather than waiting for them to leave me stranded.

 

At least on a 2nd gen you can replumb to gravity feed while on the side of the road. My truck and 1st gen that is not an option.

[djh3]

My brother in-law has a early 2000 ish G20 Chevy van. He had a couple of them die on road and he uses his van for work. Left him high and dry. Mechanincs tell him "no reason" just the way they are. And car/truck ones are submerged to help keep cool. He now changes one out as regular scheduled maint also I think.

[spke]

It is an OLD design. Uses a set of points. The one I had on my Road* (essentially the same pump) was highly intermittent and would not work if it was cold. Once the bike was warmed up she would work all day long until next cold start, then nothing

 

Hi all I could not find is there a common cause of all these fuel pump failures is it a bad design, just a short life span of the product, or letting the fuel or pump get damaged. I'm trying to understand especially when I hear some of you just cruising down the highway and bike shuts off with no notification

 

Thanks

[OB-1]

IMHO the problem is poor design. The pump is basically a solenoid with contacts and is manufactured as cheaply as possible. The contacts are usually what fail which is why a good tap will often make the pump run.

 

IMHO the fuel pump and rear shock are designed to be good enough to make it through the warranty most of the time.

[orlean1]

Thanks everyone for the feedback

[wizard]

My pump on the 06 Venture went sour pretty early in its life. I bought a used pump and now have about 70,000 miles with no trouble.

[Seaking]

Hi all I could not find is there a common cause of all these fuel pump failures is it a bad design, just a short life span of the product, or letting the fuel or pump get damaged. I'm trying to understand especially when I hear some of you just cruising down the highway and bike shuts off with no notification

Thanks

 

One of the main culprits for killing off a fuel pump prematurely is a dirty fuel filter.. I bought my 2006 RSV in 2008 and didn't know that the original owner had never changed the fuel filter.. It was was so dirty that at one point it actually prevented fuel from flowing through unless there was more than 2/3 of the tank full of fuel.. then it would act as if it was on reserve.. Once that was figured out and the fuel filter changed (it was quite black) the bike ran fine for a while but it then experience shut downs at the oddest of times, under various conditions.. either highway or city riding, until it finally quit all together. The tech who sorted out the issue showed me the contacts on the old pump and said that the pump looked like it was so over worked that the contacts finally wore out from working too hard trying to pull fuel through that dirty fuel filter.

 

I have since then relocated the fuel filter to a more accessible location and change it every season on spec. No probs since then. YMMV on this..

[dbikers]

i can tell you that on any gm product since 1990 that one of the major reasons of premature fp failure is running the tank low on fuel (they are cooled by fuel in the tank as well as what is flowing).

i don't think it's the same on these bikes but .....idk

[djh3]

Nope, these are inline and I belive have an internal pressure regulator of some sort.

[dingy]

Nope, these are inline and I belive have an internal pressure regulator of some sort.

I dissected the non working fuel pump that I got with my Hybrid/ RSV project bike and took some pictures that are attached.

 

This pump was exhibiting very high current draw, basically a short circuit. Current draw did not reduce when points where opened.

 

I got coil out of case and found that there is a diode across the incoming wires at the coil lead in wires. This diode had failed in a shorted condition which was causing the high current flow. Last picture shows aftermath of diode when I reversed polarity on it and it popped.

 

Once diode was out of circuit, current draw on coil was in expected range.

 

Below is a write up I did on a 1st gen pump, the RSV is very similar in functioning to what is in this thread.

 

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=63062

 

Gary