Fule Gauge Not Working!

[Tokalosh]

Ok now I'm a little confused....
My Kat has not been used for a while as it is winter. I roll it out the garage every week and fire her up for a good 20 min or so.
When I put her to bed for the winter the tank was full and the fule gauge was reading full.
Today the fule gauge is reading empty but the tank is full, what gives?
Where do I start fault finding first?

Thanks

Tok

[ZukiFred]

I would start with the wires that connect to the bottom of the tank, Mine would read full and then empty then full again. My problrm was a loose ground wire that conected to the bottom of hte tank.

[HS2020]

Check your fuses first. Then I would look at the connections under the tank. Those are the first things I would. You may have some corrosion on the connectors.

[arsenic]

It could be 3 things:
1. Wiring from the fuel sender to the gauge.
2. The fuel sender it self. (that thing in the tank that reads how much fuel you have)
3. The gauge itself is bad.

Past that I'm out of ideas if I think of anything else I'll post up.

[steves]

Re: Fule Gauge Not Working!

I roll it out the garage every week and fire her up for a good 20 min or so.

You'd be better off just putting fuel stabalizer in if you aren't going to actually ride it. You risk fouling the plugs, and getting carbon build up in the combustion chamber.

[arsenic]

Good call on the fuses HS2020, I didn't think of that.

[brooder]

If you're going to run it, run it for 10 minutes at operating temperature.

As far as the fuel gauge, see the above comments.

[The CyberPoet]

There are three locations the 98+ tends to lose connectivity or have problems (if you find the fuse isn't the culprit -- which I doubt it is since you didn't complain about other items being dead, such as the tach):

The wiring from the sender at the first connector after it exits the tank (should be approximately on the right side of the airbox, half way between the tank and the battery). Suspect if you took the tank off or messed with the fairings.

The 20-pin wiring connector on the rear side of the dash, above the headlight is the second one. The final one is about 6" forward and right of that one, above the right headlight.

You might also have a dead spot in your sender, but I doubt it based on the age of the bike ('03) -- unless you been sticking stuff into your gas tank (like screwdrivers or pliers trying to get something out).

The final question is have you been keeping the bike on a charger when it's not running? I ask because if it's been draining constantly and only charging back up during your 20 minute start-ups, it could have caused an high-voltage condition in the circuitry if your battery was weak & your charging system is borderline (testing the voltage of the bike both parked & running might be wise).

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[md86]

If the gauge is ALL the way down , like WAY below the red , it's wiring . If it's just down , your float may be messed-up . Mine actually came OFF , so it read NEAR empty all the time until I fixed it .