Fuel Tap Issue?

[Stereordinary]

I think I may need a new fuel tap, but I thought I should describe the problem here first, and see if you gentlemen have any thoughts.

Twice now, after not many miles, I have had to switch to fuel reserve to ride with plenty of fuel left in the tank. Unless I’m doing the math wrong (40-ish miles to the gallon times 3.9 gallon tank equals at least 100 miles until empty), than I’m having to switch to reserve way before I should need to. I’m sure my carbs are due for a cleaning and balancing as well, but am I correct in thinking that my fuel tap is the likely culprit here?

[Freddy]

Yes ....

My experience with failing taps (two times) is exactly as you describe. Seems they need a decent 'head' of pressure to work as they age. It'll work fine with a full tank, but cuts off the fuel well before the tank is low enough to need to change to reserve.

[hugojose]

The tap has two filters on top, inside the tank. One taller than the other one, 'On" is the taller one, the so called 'reserve' is short one. There is not 'reserve' per see, the taller filter simply starts sucking air when fuel is bellow it.


"On" means you only have the top 2/3 of the tank to suck from. "reserve" means you have the whole tank. It sounds like you need new filters on the tap, or simply change the whole tap to play it safe. .......in the mean time you can go always on 'reserve', .........I do.

The 'reserve' is an anachronism, harking back to the times where bikes did not have fuel gauge, nor trip odometer. The Zeph has both.

[Stereordinary]

Thanks guys! Looks like a replacement fuel tap complete unit is about $81usd, not super cheap, but if it’s gonna last 30 years like the previous one has, I’m good with that.

HugoJose’s post brings up another question though. My Zeph (a 550) does not have a fuel gauge, but since it has two trip meters, it wouldn’t be hard to use one as a tracker for when to fuel up. So now I’m curious if there’s a different model fuel tap from another Kawi bike that has a simple on/off operation instead. If the reserve setting is not really all that necessary, on/off would make removing the tank for maintenance easier.