Fuel strip to float conversion complete guide.

Hello,

just a small intermediate result:
yesterday I took the bike for a ride.
Soon after start the display showed a full tank, the yellow warning light went off.
(Indeed the tank was nearly full.)
But the display doesn't change, the shown range increases by every mile.
I will keep an eye on it and report here.

Greetings Frankie


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Providing you are maintaining a constant speed & throttle position, it is correct that the range increases. this is due to the bike being in a fuel efficient state,

Heavy braking, rapid acceleration, WOT, will all all change the fuel efficiency optimums


Normally what happens when you fill up, is that the ecu does a quick calculation based on some preset algorithms and give you an approximated range

Go on a long run and cruise at say 60mph, and the amount of fuel used, then does not match the expected range , so the ecu recalculates and the range increases, however as you are burning fuel,

eventually the decrease of fuel in the tank will show a decrease in range

When i fill my car it shows - range 150-180 miles - get onto the motorway and put the car in cruise, by the time i've traveled 30 or so miles my range is at 300 miles, it estimates that t will takes

300 miles to use the fuel in the tank based on the current rate of consumption

HTH
 
Float does not work :-(

Hi,
I just followed all Denz0 steps, directly on ZFE connector measured 88ohms on 37 and 21 pin (now almost full tank), coded potentiometer instead of foil strip, coded disable induction sensor, but still yellow triangel and empty tank on display, after 100km trip still the same :-((( My ZFE is HIGH version with available parameters needs to be changed.
Anybody some idea what´s wrong?
 
Hi,
I just followed all Denz0 steps, directly on ZFE connector measured 88ohms on 37 and 21 pin (now almost full tank), coded potentiometer instead of foil strip, coded disable induction sensor, but still yellow triangel and empty tank on display, after 100km trip still the same :-((( My ZFE is HIGH version with available parameters needs to be changed.
Anybody some idea what´s wrong?

HI,

We need a bit more data please

Month & year of manufacture
What model
If you know it, the ZFE part number
 
Hi Santa,

thanks for your reply. My R1200GSA is 2009 and details about ZFE are on screenshots here: https://www.uschovna.cz/en/zasilka/BHX8IT96PLAF9LB2-9HD/

Thanks a lot for help.

I need the month of manufacture as well please

otherwise I have to search 12 months to see if there are any mid year model changes

and please can you post the pictures into this post -

Linking Zip files however safe ;) wont get opened by me i'm afraid

Its quite easy to link files in a thread


Have you swapped the wiring from pins 34 & 35 to pins 21 & 37 ?

This means that your new float is powered from pins 21& 37 - pins 34 & 35 should no be connected to anything
 
I need the month of manufacture as well please

otherwise I have to search 12 months to see if there are any mid year model changes

and please can you post the pictures into this post -

Linking Zip files however safe ;) wont get opened by me i'm afraid

Its quite easy to link files in a thread


Have you swapped the wiring from pins 34 & 35 to pins 21 & 37 ?

This means that your new float is powered from pins 21& 37 - pins 34 & 35 should no be connected to anything



Hi,
I am not able to put pictures direcly to tis post, I have no option for that here :-( I have R1200GSA 04/2009, if VIN can help as well, it is WB103800X9ZW76080
Yes, pins are swapped to 21&37 and i can measure float resistance (now 88 ohms) directly on ZFE connector, pins 21&37
Originally bike comes from UK and previous owner recoded bike to EU (like km instead of mph etc.)
I am a bit confused, as I see on Motoscan manufacturing date of ZFE at 2004-04-15 even if bike is 04/2009. MCV I see 0.6.0, FSV 2.9.0 and OSV 3.3.0, ZFE is HIGH version (board computer, ESA, RDC, etc. full equipped for this year).
Hope it can help to find what’ s wrong there.

Thank you
 
Hello there,

last few days I did not ride far, but the floater seems to work.
After showing a range from about 550km with almost full tank, it decreased to 480 - 510km.
(I add the covered and remaining distance)
Maybe I have to adjust a little.
The bar seems to show an equal value.
So I put a fuel can in my trunk and wait ´til warning lamp will light or the bike runs out of gas.

To be continued…

Greetings Frankie
 
Hello there,

last few days I did not ride far, but the floater seems to work.
After showing a range from about 550km with almost full tank, it decreased to 480 - 510km.
(I add the covered and remaining distance)
Maybe I have to adjust a little.
The bar seems to show an equal value.
So I put a fuel can in my trunk and wait ´til warning lamp will light or the bike runs out of gas.

To be continued…

Greetings Frankie

Frankie, if you check my post (#49) it looks like you have the same situation as my bike (2010 GSA which left the factory with a strip) because I don't see an option for INDUCTIVE_FUEL_SENSOR on my Motoscan ultimate either. I have now refuelled twice since making the changes I described, and then have deliberately allowed the bike to run out of fuel (at 374 and 372 miles). Getting to that mileage suggests that the transfer pump must have been running.

Both times when I filled the tank the fuel gauge showed all bars lit but then when I ran out of fuel there were still 2 bars showing on the fuel gauge so I think the float still needs some adjustment. Also, the low fuel light didn't come on before I ran out of fuel.

Last time I had the tank off I moved the transfer pipe to above the float instead of underneath it so either the pipe has slipped back or some further adjustment of the float is needed. The bike took about 31 litres to fill up (cant be 100% sure as I refuelled initially from a fuel can and then rode 20 or 30 miles to a petrol station) so on the assumption the tank does hold 33 litres "usable fuel capacity" as given in the handbook there must have still been 2 litres left in the tank that were below the mouth of the transfer pipe. Its difficult to see exactly whether the transfer pipe is within the tank so I may just live with not having those 2 litres available to me ;)

The only thing that doesn't seem clear to me is that the low fuel light didn't come on which I think is supposed to be when you have about 4 litres left but I calculated I only had a bout 2 litres left. Whatever, I now know the most important thing which is how many miles range I actually have. Being old school I always reset my trip when I fuel up.... :D
 
I'm going through this process at the moment. Swapped the pins etc and gauge went from flashing fuel despite 1/3 tank to about 4 or 5 blocks which was more realistic. I changed it to potentiometer from foelbinger and for some reason the inductive fuel sensor was already deactivated.

Filled the tank and gauge went to full. First block went off at 94 miles, second at 144 miles. After that I had to watch the road! It's now on 300 and still has 4 blocks showing. Need to chuck a fuel can on and see what happens. I always zero my trip as a back up.

Need to take it out again and see what it does through a full range of movement. Dont mind it coming down slowly, would rather it was accurate at the bottom end so may try and bend to adjust.
 
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If its any consolation i replaced my fuel strip on my 2006 GSA with a new fuel strip and calibrated with my GS-911 but the calibration is out somewhat.
The fuel light comes on around 250 miles which is about 70 -100 miles short, while its better than being broken i'm wondering how to reolve the issue.

After viewing a Youtube installation process i made absolutely certain the strip was installed correctly, with the bottom of the strip clicked in place at the base of the tank so im confident its not that.

My thoughts are to run the bike to 350 miles in the hope that the ECU/computer/brains may re callibrate itself once it has realised where empty actually is.
Would that work??
 
Hi vee5,
I have the same problem. No option for the INDUCTIVE FULE SENSOR. Did you ever solve the problem? Any insight would be fantastic!.
Regards
Bluemask
 
Just an update.
Had a chance to get out on the bike today for 1/2 an hour. The fuel reading on the dash now shows a full tank ( whic it is, I filled up befor heading out) and the range indicator slowly incrrased from 230km up to 450km by the time I returned. I only traveled about 30km so I'd imagine a longer trip would allow the on board computer to calculate a more accurate reading. Again, when I recode'd the ZFE there was no option for "INDUCTAVE FUEL SENSOR" but the ZEF seems to be communicating the float properly. I'm delighted. I have a November reg 2010 BMW GS Adventure with High ZFE.
 
Hello,

another update:
now I filled the tank 5 times since I changed to float.
The behavior of my fuel display did not change really:
From full tank it takes about 160-180km until first bar dies, and at empty tank range indicator shows about 180km. Display says then about one third full. Yellow lamp shows nothing at all.
I´m afraid but i guess I have to bend the float wire to get a reserve warning and ignore the range indicator displayed in future.

Other ideas?

Greetings Frankie
 
Nige T

Is there anyone in the UK who offers the service of swapping the fuel sensors from strip to float?

Mine is a 2010 twin cam but had a strip sensor which keeps failing - I keep zapping it with the lighter but it fails again after a few rides.

Thanks in advance

Hi if you have a gsa r1200 then there is a seller on Ebay offering this service. Based in north Essex
 
Can anyone help me along, I have read all the good work undertaken so decided to do the conversation on ta k1200s, all went well till I came to the coding, looks like I can only change the thermocouples to potentiometer, as I cannot find the inductive fuel sensor, yes I must have the low level software version.
Options, I have not yet made the coding change to see if the potentiometer change will go through or indeed make any difference
Any ideas most welcome

Gareth
 
Thank you to the OP - a successful conversion to my 2011 r!200GSA. Also thanks to advice given to me by Mark - a forum member on here. If anyone else is 'stuck' procedure wise at a point doing this - its quite fresh in my mind so please pm me :)
 
Many thanks!

Late 2008 R1200GSA. After the second failure of a fuel strip I stumbled across this thread so, failing to find a used float sensor, bit the bullet and bought a new one.
Got round to doing the conversion yesterday - happily the failed strip had decided to fix itself in the month or so it's been out of the tank so I reset the fault and calibrated the old sensor before continuing. Everything straightforward, the Spanish video tagged earlier was invaluable for easy disassembly of the very clever plugs.
The 'blanks' in the 21 & 37 positions were the most problematical as they appear to be part of the wiring side of the 2-piece (3 if you include the seal) terminal holder - I think they are moulded with all positions 'blanked' and then the ones that are to be used for terminals are broken off. The first one I achieved by getting the two halves far enough apart (the wires bending towards the wrapped loom make this part difficult) to pull out the blank, the second one I did by inserting a small rod into the wiring side of the receptacle and pushing down, once the blank had sheared off I then pushed it out the other way.
Checked the functioning of empty mid and full of the sender before installing in the tank, mine definitely brings on the warning light on empty.
Checked the 'empty' resistance before putting the pump/sender into the tank and then re-checked that it was the same once installed so hopefully will continue to bring on the fuel warning in use.
Ordered the new back tyre today will give a function test with a spare fuel can next month :fbthumb
 
Left the house yesterday with 2 bars showing, 2 miles later the low fuel warning is on, zero bars showing. Have pulled everything apart, checked continuity to ECU plugs from float sensor, everything seems to check out OK but no change to display - zero miles range, no bars for fuel level and yellow triangle.
Any ideas, I'm stumped unless the ECU has decided to go on strike :-(
 


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