Nu2thahawk

Fellas,

My hawk has been out of comission since the end of last season. Sometime in september, I pulled the bike from the garage and road it to the gas station a couple miles away to fill it up before I put it away for the winter. After fueling, I made it about a half mile from the station before the bike started to run on one cylinder. Felt like a stuttery hesitation. I'm pretty sure only one hole was firing at the time though it could have been both just running very low on power.

It seemed to run ok but if you rolled on the throttle it was real bad. Felt like fuel restriction in a way. Anyhow, pulled the tank off it the other day and drained it. The fuel was a nasty yellow color, and had a fair amount of bugs and junk down in it. This was 93 octane fuel that isn't but 4 months or so of sitting in the tank. Not long enough for it to go rotten like it is. I'm pretty sure I must have gotten the bottom of the barrel when I filled and thats why it ran like crap after going to the store.

I've now changed the plugs and oil, drained the tank and float bowls. Haven't pulled the carbs because I was thinking some fresh gas and this ought to run. I hit the airbox with a small shot of starting fluid and gave the starter a bump, fires right up.

So, I want to install fuel filters, any reccomendations on keeping any possible trash out of the carbs? Figured I would throw some fuel in the tank and connect the lines to try and give it a start before I remove the rest of the airbox and pull the carbs. If it runs then great, if I need to pull the carbs so be it. But, if I can avoid pulling them I will, don't think it has any plugged jets I just think this fuel is so nasty it won't burn well. I put a lighter to some and the stuff barely burns.

Dave

comedo

There is a fuel filter above the fuel tap. If you remove the two Allen head bolts holding on the fuel tap, you can remove it and the fuel filter. The filter is plastic. It has a very fine mesh. It should stop a lot of junk from getting from the tank into the carbs. You could clean the filter if it is clogged,and thoroughly flush the tank. You might also drain the float bowls. You don't have to remove the carbs to do it. Start with fresh gas. Four months is a long time.

superbling

You could have simply overfilled the tank and experienced vapor lock. Are you familiar with that?

Yes, filters are a good idea and certainly won't hurt. I'd suggest small ones as there isn't a ton of room underneath. Suggestion: don't cut the line too close to the petcock to install them as it's a beee-otch to put the lines back on the petcock because it's such a tight squeeze.

JamieDaugherty

Actually no, filters are NOT a good idea. Anything finer than the current screen in the tank can (and will) restrict the fuel flow. This big hogs need a lot of fuel and when relying on a gravity feed system you cannot have any restrictions.

skokievtr

Ding, wrong answer. Honda GL1200 Goldwings, etc before Fi and w/o fuel pumps run filters, in fact I've been running dual filters for years. I change them every 2 seasons. I buy the cheap ones from JCW, cat # ZX010312Y for Honda's (3/8" ID) at $3.49 each (were $2.99). http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/S...searchbtn.y=15

these are the same http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/S...&sku=CBF010312

made by EMGO pn 14-34481

I get 4 pair at a time. Never had one fail, even one time after 3 years. Fuel additives like Chevron Tecron and others are good and have not eaten the filters. You can fog in with the air filter off or drip in thru the carb vacuum fittings Sea Foam or OMC cleaners, even Marvel Myster Oil that will break up carbon on the pistons and valves and shoot it out the pipes. Does a good job of killing mesquitos too. Using a fuel stablizer to winterize and fogging or squirting oil in the spark plug hole is a good idea too. In the spring I squirt oil and crank it over, slap in old plugs and run up to temp and then change the oil and filter. Then put good plugs back in. Never a problem. Knock on plastic.

JamieDaugherty

Go ahead and try it and let us know how that works out. I will site two points to back up my previous statement:

1) I've converted several bikes with a fuel pump (and factory installed filter) to gravity feed. In the process you must remove the filter from the line or you will starve the engine.
2) Honda put filters on motorcycles (does a Goldwing actually count?) for years. Once they started going to gravity feed the filters went away. Why? Were they wrong all of those years? No, they just couldn't tolerate the flow restriction. Bear in mind that we are talking about large-displacement engines here.

Once again, I suggest giving it a shot on a **VTR** and letting us know how it works on a **VTR**.

BeerHunter