Water water everywhere !

[leeiom]

Had a stuttering problem and thought it was electrical, so after checking leads, coils and replacing plugs I decided it must be carbs so drained the float bowls and low and behold full of water.  Emptied the tank and as you can see from the attached a 'bit' of water in the fuel tank    (The fuel is sitting on top)
Bit lost as to how this amount of water could have got in there.  Posible bad fuel at petrol pump but no reports locally of anyone else suffering my fate.  Condensation has been mentioned but seems a lot of water for that.  So I'm left thinking the seal on my tank is buggered, and as my bike is left outside in the rain from time to time it would make sense.   Anyone have any experience with this problem before ?  Is there a drain outlet around the mouth of the filler which could be blocked ? 

[richfzs]

Like a bit of fuel in your water, do you?

My bikes 300 mile away at present, so can't go check, but fairly sure there is a drain (designed for fuel overfills, but should also stop your problem)

[darrsi]

Crikey, if you can run your bike, even with a stutter, with that much water/fuel ratio then you could be on to a winner!!!

[Fazerider]

Agreed, that's way too much water to be absorption from the atmosphere... it's obviously been pouring into the tank somehow.
The drain for the filler area goes through the tank, I'd guess either that pipe is leaking (near the top, otherwise you'd get petrol leaking out) or it's blocked and the water's getting in past the seal round the filler cap. You'll need to take the filler cap assembly off to investigate.

[redman]

Wow how the hell did that get in your tank,  Have you upset anyone recently ie: THE MRS 

[His Dudeness]

any chance you left the cap open? even with the cap open you'd think it would take months to get that much water 

[steeeve66]

Wow how the hell did that get in your tank,  Have you upset anyone recently ie: THE MRS 

There might be something in this - you're sure this isn't someone who doesn't like you? Even with the cap wide open left in rain it would take a while to take in that much water?

[darrsi]

If this is for real, either you've filled it up via a bad petrol station, someone hates you, or you've had an open fuel cap with a funnel in it for a few weeks?


Other than those scenarios, you're maybe just having a bit of fun at our expense.........especially as i've just noticed you live on the isle of motorbikes 


As you can see by the container, fuel floats on water, so your carbs would be fed pure water, it wouldn't stutter, it simply wouldn't even turn over!

[Major Rant]

Don't know how big that container is but that could be about 1 litre of water.... If so it might be about the volume of 'unusable fuel' in the tank  which would mean that it could have been builiding up for a while on account of a blocked filler cap drain and suddenly caused problems when it started getting sucked into the fuel filter.
 
Just a thought ... it may not be 'enemy action'.

[darrsi]

Hmmmm, looks more like a 5 litre container to me, and still no response?


And an island that lives and breathes bikes, just a tad suspicious in my opinion?   

[leeiom]

Ha, apreciate your comments but honestly, no wind up going on here. I've never left the Petrol tank open and the Mrs has no reason to do such a thing, at least I think not     I haven't upset anyone recently either, and it's only me who has a key.  The picture is a little deceptive, it's a 2.5ltr container and that wasn't the ratio of fuel to water in the tank, the tank was full and that was the total amount of water in it.  It would tick over and run until it got over 5000 revs but after that it would die, obviously picking up more water than fuel at that point. I'm thinking it must be a blocked drain so if it stops pissing down today (typical bank holiday weather, and the manx gp is on over here this week) I'll have a look.

[darrsi]

Ok then, full apologies and i stand corrected. 


As for leakages, at least you haven't got too far to look, there's only one way in and that's the top!


As Fazerider says a blocked/rusty drainage pipe could cause water to overflow into the tank?


I still can't get my head around it actually running to be honest   

[leeiom]

After a small amount of digging discovered that it was a blocked tank drain. Blew it through and cleared it no probs. must have been blocked for a while for that  amount of water to build, but goes to show what can happen I suppose! Lesson learnt