Ok.. long read but the timeline matters... i think.... please correct me where Im wrong, as I added my thought process in trying to dial this shit in
from the beginning... I ride a 2007 shadow vt1100c with no gas guage, and a while back I was riding down the hill and like an idiot, I ran out of gas.. sputter...sputter...poot poot...ded... I call my roomate and had her bring a gas can down the hill with an couple inches of gas in it... She shows up, its dark as fuck... i pour a inch or so into the gas tank, because the gas station is literally about 3 blocks away. I fire up the bike, roll down to the gas station, open up the gas cap and my gas tank is FULL-as-FUCK. So full in fact Im surprised i didnt overfill it with the inch of gas i put in it 3 blocks ago...
Wait a second..... My bike ran out of gas and DIED while it had a full tank (inb4 turn the gas on dummy) gas was ON.
I was puzzled to say the least... it fired right up and off I went...into the night..
Fastforward about 6 weeks later, its been running fine since... (I literally ride this bike EVERYDAY. its my only wheels since my car got stolen) Im on my way to go visit mom and 4 blocks from her house it dies AGAIN... this time it dies while Im doing 45mph......I pulled over and im sitting on it puzzled again just like before. gas is on, gas is in, cranks and tries to start but its only got some half-assed sputters and dies when i try to give it gas.. i sit there for about long enough to smoke a cigarette.. it fires up and i ride over to moms for a couple hours and back home later without incident. I roll over to Chris's house the following night and Im convinced there is something in the fuel line clogging up fuel flow, we drain and pull the tank off and remove the petcock and look for debris... nothing... everything is clean as balls.
next....(Must be some shit in the fuel filter).. we remove it and blow thru it and maybe see a little shit come out, maybe not, it wasnt enough of anything to say for sure.. we button the bike back up, i ride home without incident
fast forward another month of riding everyday without incident
last week Im ridin along and it starts sputtering while at a stop light and everytime i give it gas, it dies... i start it up and its running,, BARELY and sounds like SHIT, and dies everytime i try to give gas, so i push it to a safe spot, call my tow truck driver homegirl to come rescue me and we take it to my house where it currently sits.
Symptoms...seems like its intermittently starved of fuel
day before yesterday.... it cranks over, and starts and runs IF i spray starting fluid direct into the airbox while cranking it, but dies again moments later - this fact tells me my sparkplugs are fine and functioning normally, its just not getting fuel
Replaced the "fuel cutoff relay" because youtube said to... that didnt fix the problem
(it must be the fuel PUMP itself!!)
yesterday, i remove the "out" fuel line, off the pump and hit the start button and it cranks just fine, but NO fuel comes out of the pump.. (this tells me pump is must be bad)... so i replace it with another, new fuel pump that is made for this bike.. its 3am
today... new pump installed, new fuel cutoff relay installed, i turn the key, everything is good, and lights come on and i hit the start button and it cranks for 2 seconds and then it blows the 10amp ignition fuse. Now it blows the ignition fuse everytime i try to start it.... It didnt do that yesterday before i installed the new fuel pump!!!!
I thought the wires on the fuel pump might be backwards,,, i swapp em around, and same thing.. cranks over for a second and blows the fuse... NOPE... so swap em back, then i disconnect the wires to the relay and pump and try to fire it up and it pops the fuse again (this tells me its NOT the new relay or the new pump)
Im thinking the fuse issue might not be related and could just be a corroded wire that i accidently helped become shorted out while dicking with the pump and stuff...I went thru all the wires i could see and everythig seems fairly legit.. but it was late as fuck so i didnt try starting it again.
Im also thinking I might be an idiot and maybe the pump and relay and everythig was and ARE still good, and my battery might have been low to the point that the fuel pump wasnt getting enough power and thus wasnt pumping anything.
Help me think of the thing I havent thought of yet..
