gas guage fix?3rd gen

Has anyone figured out a way to get the gas guage to read right? is there a float arm, or does it ride vertically? My guage goes bolow e and light on at 90 miles. I started to just read the odometer instead, which is ok, but I must not have topped off the tank properly and ran out of gas at 150 miles. I can usually get about 180 miles out of a tank. That really sucked :bs: and I sat on the side of the road for about 1 1/2 hours waiting for a gas can. I guess that I will have to fill up at 150 just in case. Seems a little ridiculous to have to fill up a sport tourer every 150 miles, Im just getting warmed up at 150. Keith

 

The gas gauge IS reading correctly.

I thought mine was broken, too, since it read "Full" for the first 75 miles or so, and then dropped very quickly thereafter.

You have to imagine the shape of the tank when considering how the gauge reads... The back part of the tank becomes exponentially smaller the less fuel it contains. Hence, the second "half" of the tank (according to the gauge)really is the last 1/4 of the fuel in the tank. The fuel level sender is also located in this portion of the tank, with the arm extending towards the front of the bike. The only thing I can suggest is re-naming the marks on the gauge...

BTW - why such lousy fuel mileage? Can't control that throttle hand???:wink: I get about 200-210 per tank.

 

Guess my throttle wrist is having speed spasms

Thanks for the reply VT, I guess I do like to juice it quite a bit. It is strange though, I was having the same right hand speed spasms riding up route 17 through that gorge up in your zone in the mountains of Vt., but I was getting about 185 miles out of a tank up there. Who knows, Im filling up at 150 for now on. Keith

 

Must be that "good" Vermont gas.:wink:

Route 17 is one of the major scenic roads I have not yet ridden in this state. Maybe if it's dry this weekend I'll check it out.

 

The fuel light on my 93 almost always came on at about 160 miles, but at that point I had only used about 4 galons. Have you had a tune up lately? Synced the carbs? Valve clearances checked? Tire air pressure has some effect on mileage too as well as changes in elevation, maybe even quality of fuel (myth?)

 

Good morning. Just did a ride out west with a buddy, he has a 3rd gen and I have a 4th gen and we found that the 3rd gen tank is a lot smaller. We also found that the stock jetting is a little off. Lean at idle and just above,quite rich in the midrange, and then lean on the top end. This was bad enough to affect the gas milage. A very quick way to check this is to remove the airbox snorkle [ it goes back on with no problem ] Then go for a ride. If it's running strange at a steady rpm and throttle try quickly putting on then off with the choke. If it gets better, then worse it's lean, if just worse, it's too rich.It should be flat [lean] above 8thou rpm but the mid range should be better. Honda put a shim under the needle in the slide, you can move this to the top but this means it's time to start re-jetting. This worked on both 3rd and 4th gen's. We opened up the baffle in the stock exhaust with a stepped drill [unibit ] and an extension. Not as much change to the jetting as drilling the air box, but the sound is better. Depending on how much you mod the air box, changes how much bigger you have to go with the main jets. We both ended up with stock pilot jets, down on the needle [moved shim[washer] to the top ] and up some sizes on the main. We did this over 2 years ago, so some of the details are a little foggy.
Good luck if you try any of this. It really helped us. Cheers Peter...

 

Confirmed. Direct from the service manual:

Fuel tank size:
1990-1993: 5.0 gallons
1994-1997: 5.5 gallons

Both tanks incorporate a 0.92 gallon reserve.

 

1st post here. On my 92, my low fuel light noramlly comes on around 150-160 miles. But when I fill it up again, it rarely takes more than three gallons.