How to Maintain Your Motorcycle Fuel Pump Properly
Motorcycles are amazing to ride but are sometimes a hassle to repair and maintain. Fuel pump for motorcycle has been a subject of debate because of how they break down without warning. What’s more, this crucial part of any motor operated machine is costly to repair let alone buy a new one.
Motor pumps are not far away from their first iterations that were specifically for pumping water. So if anyone tells you that every mechanical pump is the same, don’t scoff, they might be right. With most pumps, you’ll have a diaphragm, attached to a rod that creates a vacuum to suck fuel to the other side of the diaphragm, go to the injectors and other engine parts.
Fuel pump for motorcycle in the earlier days didn’t require much pressure to get things running, but nowadays, with the demand for more powerful motorcycles growing by the day; about 472,000 in 2017, most fuel pump manufacturers have had to up their game.
Fuel Injection: What You Need to Know
Robert Bosch is the genius who came up with the fuel injection phenomenon in the 1940s. People all across Europe had vehicles with the Bosch injector system, with the fuel pump installed extremely close to the fuel tank.
This proximity to the tank almost eliminated the need for the vacuum as the pump could almost convey the fuel to the injectors with only gravity. Typically, the pressure would be between 50-75 psi, which was very high for a standard vehicle or motorcycle fuel pump.
As the demand for conventional vehicle and motorcycle fuel pumps grew, manufacturers resorted to creating fuel pumps with fewer pressure requirements to decrease the cost of production and make these automobiles affordable to more people.
These fuel pumps for motorcycles created pressure of between 6-13 psi and upto 35psi for standard vehicles. Pressure could, however, reach close to 65 psi to start some split system systems for large commercial vehicles to start up the engines. The pressure would then reduce to 54 psi once the engine was up and running.
Nowadays, vehicles and motorcycles have a low-pressure pump that gets fuel to the high-pressure pump, which then generates very high pressures. For a gas-fired car, you’re looking at 2200 psi. The pressure could easily reach 3100 on turbo-diesel engines for both vehicles and motorcycles.
Tips on Maintaining Fuel Pump for Motorcycle
1. Fuel
For longevity and eliminating the need for multiple motorcycle fuel pump repairs, ensure you only use tier 1 fuels. Tier 1 fuels are fuels from any known brand and not any off-brand or second-grade fuel. As a rule of thumb, look for brands like Shell, Marathon, BP, Chevron and the likes.
2. Fuel Jelling
If you don’t use your motorcycle that much; say two weeks or more without use, then your fuel might jell up. Fuel jelling occurs when the paraffin, which is a component of diesel, starts to solidify at low temperature, which happens when you don’t fire up your engine too often, especially during winter.
Jelled up fuel could clog many parts of the engine so ensure you add an anti-ethanol agent. Remember, fuel jelling, and subsequent separation is the leading cause of fuel pump failure.
3. Fuel Pump Immersion
Make sure your fuel pump is always immersed in fuel all the time. Remember a fuel pump is an electric motor that tends to heat up. The reason why fuel pumps are found inside fuel tanks is to immerse them in fuel for cooling. It is, therefore, important to always keep your fuel tank above the half level.
4. Fuel Filter
Any fuel pump for motorcycle has a fuel filter inside the tank. In the rare case, yours doesn’t, change the fuel yearly even if you have traveled only a few miles with the cycle.
Bottom Line
Caring for your motorcycle fuel pump doesn’t have to be a chore. Just follow these simple tips, and you won’t have to go for motorcycle fuel pump repairs.