Bike Would Not Start After A Spill

[barny]

Well as the title, at the end of November I have a walking pace spill on my gravel drive, no damage just embarrassment & dented pride. Disillusioned with my lack of off road skill I put the bike in the garage & wrapped it up for winter. Well in December just before Christmas I thought I would start the bike & warm it through. It would not start, turned over OK but would not fire, the fuel was low but 65 miles range showing & I could hear fuel sloshing around when the bike was moved about. The only thing I could think of was the fuel pump as I could not hear it running. My Bike is a 2007 R1200GS ADV so I read through lots of info on this site for which I am grateful to the contributors & several threads led me to the Fuel Pressure Relay (FPR) not working as this era of the GS had a history of these failing, so brought a new FPR fitted it & hoped, result the same engine would turn over but not fire.

So back to the web & read a very interesting thread on this site regarding GS which had fallen on its right side & then not starting (as mine had). Read further & this bike also had low fuel so the owner put in more fuel as last thing he could think off & the bike started. Well armed with this I trundled off to the petrol station got some petrol, put it in & hey presto my bike fired & then started, just like magic. My next move was to have had the bike recovered to a "local stealer" to be fixed but this info have saved me further expense & hopefully others will also benefit. Apparently the front lobes of the tank can drain to the right side of the tank away from the pump if you are low on fuel & the bike falls.

Many thanks to the site & contributors

Barny

 

[Ex-Call Centre Chimp]

Worth knowing, thanx. FWIW my experience of faulty Fuel Pump Controllers (is that the same thing?) is that the bike will fire & run but as soon as you try to rev the engine it dies.

 

[tanneman]

Ah, the 1200 section does have some use after all. Sometimes it is a better read than the pub section with all the nonsense being posted. Glad you got it sorted.

 

[oldnfat]

Thanks for taking the time to post your experience....the dropping of a GS is a fairly common occurrence. Big twins stall relatively easily at low revs so dropping them is fairly common...higher revs and clutch slip being the order of the day.....welcome to the club!

As a result your experience with the fuel tank is also fairly common....don't worry about it.

 

[GrinningGSer]

A year ago, as part of my planning, when joining an off road group (They were on proper off road bikes), I deliberately engineered a low fuel level so as to keep weight down. Within a mile, I was off, but after resting the bike on its left side; no way would it start, spin spin spin....nothing. I pushed the bike over to the right, to refuel the right side, uprighted it and it started first time. It's unnatural for these bikes to be emplty on one side and I feel that once it starts to suck air, then you are not going anywhere. Perhaps it doesn't matter, which side runs out of fuel, I reckon you are still as soon as one side starts to suck air. (I posted this observation as part of a question about internal fuel pickup on this site )

 

[wobbler65]

brilliant

after dropping mine in may and only just getting round to fixing her up I had the same problem with restarting the old gal (2006 gsa adv ) I charged the battery this morning and she would not run but after filling her up a bit she fired and is now talking to me nicely

cheers

 

[Bendy toy]

Fuel from one side of the tank is moved to the left by a venturi jet pump that uses the injection system return flow to create the suction. If the bike falls onto that side with a low tank level, all the fuel will end up on the "wrong" side. The pump might be faulty (fuel controller), but with no fuel to pump the venturi wont work so the bike cant run so the fuel cant be moved across the tank.

Who knows why the designers thought two fuel taps (normal and reserve) were such a bad idea. It wouldn't be cost? Of course not.