Fuel pump absolutely necessary on a 1985 VF700?

hey Tink do you have a list of parts you used for the fuel line routing?

 

Hmmmm.....maybe I should start a thread about oil? Synthetic vs. Dino?

 

lol...or tires, or oil filters, or favorite model...

 

Anyone use regular car motor oil instead?

Sorry, just wanted to jump in before this one is locked!

 

I have ridden my first gen 1k and second gen 750 both without pumps. For me they hit reserve at same general mileage as with pump and I never tried to ride them till they quit before refueling thou .So maybe there was a same amount of fuel that wont come out but for me I wont be trying to find out on the road.

 

I just want to weigh in here as I have been having intermittent starvation issues (85 700VF) whilst using gravity, which becomes pronounced at 1/2 a tank and often inoperable once the gas gets any lower. I felt like I was chasing my tail around and around until I decided to take out one variable and plug the (working) pump back in. Bingo.
I am not going to claim my problem was the gravity feed though, I think it's a little more complicated.
In my case, I'm pretty sure I have a problem with the petcock screen which would explain the intermittency of the problem well: the variables are pretty random. Can't really predict the issue except that it is not very likely to occur with a full tank.
Reconnecting the pump made the problem less frequent and less pronounced (at first testing) and now I can run my bike below half a tank of gas ( I should note at the onset of the problem I used to be able to run gravity until about 1/4 tank before things got problematic)....
My supposition is that I am getting a block in my petcock screen from some tank crud that the both the pump an/or the pressure and gravity of a full tank (only) can overcome.
I'm going to test this by (when I get time) cleaning the petcock, flushing the tank, and giving gravity another try.
Is it fair to assume based upon the experiences of folks here, and myself that gravity may be ok, but not if you have other problematic areas in your tank or fuel supply?
Hope this doesn't make anyone go too psycho.

 

My experiences are that is precisely what happens to everyone who has issues with gravity feed - there is something else wrong. The pump just masks the true problem. What feeds the pump? Gravity.

Hopefully you can get to the bottom of your problem. Fuel system issues can be a very frustrating thing.