In for a penny...

I did a dumb thing and didnt order a fuel pump kit. Pulled everything out of the tank, and the wrap on the fuel pump is brittle and crumbling. I dont want to put that back in the tank. so....wait a couple more days while JP gets that sent to me.

 

There is something deeply satisfying about reassembling a motorcycle and having it fire up at the first go at the hot button. which is exactly what happened this evening. I had to rebuild the whole tank section of the fuel system - both fuel lines and check valves, fuel pump, filter, pre-screen. getting it all back together is a **** job. There are no effective instructions anywhere. The works basically gets stuffed in a blind hole with hoses and things sticking out all over the place, some of it very delicate like the fuel gauge float. If you have ever tried to stuff an angry cat into a box for a vet trip, you know how that goes. Once wrestled inside with a lot of grown up verbiage, the damned thing would bottom out and leave a 1/8" gap preventing the (ten!) screw holes from lining up. after two hours of very unpleasant in and out, I decided there must be some sort of interference fit necessary and screwed it down anyhow. There isnt any measurable warping of the top panel and it all holds fuel. so I must have done most things right.

 

Hopefully, the O-ring material was "VITON."

 

I am really glad you got that Magneti Marelli girl back running.

Yet that interference fit you created will come back to bite you in the ***.

Do you think the factory did it that way?
Or a proper HD Tech would do it that way?

Pull it out and do it right.

 

Im not terribly happy about it. I tried about 800 different ways. got any ideas? there is a small rise in the tank on that side where the pump seems to bottom out. and Im blind at that point the only thing I can think of is to get a borescope and see if I can spot the issue that way

 

You guys are killing me. The pump is designed with a rubber foot that sits on the bottom of the tank and a spring that compresses to keep tension on the canopy/pump assembly.

This results in having to push down on the canopy while tightening the screws. The pump doesn't just hang freely in the tank.

 

Yep. I do understand that. and I cleaned the heck out of the shaft to make sure it was sliding freely. The inference isnt spring tension. best I can figure is either the hoses are somehow shoving things into an spot just slightly off or the slider bound up. Or perhaps the aftermarket pump isnt letting the spring collapse completely. It took some manhandling to get the screws in and sequentially tightened. I havent had any leaks or poor running, so it seems alright. I couldnt find anything anywhere to tell me a specific method for refitting and I couldnt remember how much tension was released when I removed the original works.