"Good idea. I wish there was an easy solution though."
Reset your trip odometer to zero every time you fill up
The first winter I had my GL500 the trip meter was broken. Every time I filed up I got a cash slip, wrote the odometer reading on it and kept it in the pocket of my jacket so I could check how far I had gone since the last fil up. It was a pain so the first chance I got I took the speedo apart and swapped in a trip meter from a dead GL1000 speedo. It worked fine after that.
Personally, I think it looks dumb & amateurish. And I won't even mention the obvious safety issues.
If you want to use a bottle like that for a sight glass, fine. But make a proper fitting instead of a pipe fitting a piece of rubber and band clamps. The bottle & the pipe fitting aren't even straight to each other and there is no other support for the bottle. If that thing shakes like most custom Harleys the bottle is likely to fall of if it was ever driven on the road. And what's the tube coming out the bottom of the bottle (the end that points up) and running back under the tank? If it's the vent (necessary on a sight glass) shouldn't it go back to the top of the tank?
A real craftsman would have made something that the threaded neck of the bottle would screw into with a gasket to seal it and a bracket to support the other end with a tube back to the top of the tank built into it.
But then, you can tell that bike isn't intended for use on the road. No-one would put a big metal hook like that right in front of their knee. Can you imagine what that could do if the car in front stopped short & the bike rear ended it?
A quick & easy way to accomplish the same thing would be to put a T fitting in the fuel line right below the petcock and run a rubber fuel line up beside the left frame tube to an elbow near the wide part of the tank, then run a piece of clear tubing from there to the top of the tank. It would be fairly easy to make something that would plug into the vent tube hole of a fuel cap from a modern bike for the other end of the tube. Simple and elegant - all you would see is a clear tube running from under the tank to the fuel cap.
But then again, using the trip odometer is even more elegant.
My sidecar machine has it's original CX650E dash (with fuel gauge) and a GL500 tank (no sender). It has always bothered me a bit that I have a non-working gauge on my dash. I briefly contemplated cutting a hole in the 500 tank, flattening the area around it to suit the sender and modifying the 650E sender so it doesn't hit the inside of the GL500 tank & hang up, but that sounds like a lot of work. I have also toyed with the idea of modifying the 650E tank so that it will fit over the cowl stay that supports the Interstate fairing, but that would involve a lot of cutting, welding and filling.
It's a lot easier to just reset my trip meter when I fill up and have the same result. Heck, the fuel gauge on the GoldWing works perfectly and I still reset the trip meter when I fill it and Kay does the same thing in her car.
The 650's tach & the speedo both squeal when it is damp or really cold. I have tried all the things that have worked for others on these forums and they just start to squeal again in a few days. I am going to fix it by building a new dash with a better (I hope) set of gauges that I got at Cycle Salvage yesterday. The new dash will have a speedo, tach, temp gauge and idiot lights.
If it doesn't have a fuel gauge to bother me I will stop thinking silly thoughts about making the gauge work.
Hi Bob,
If you could see how accurate the CX650E fuel gauge is , it would never really bug you when it broke. Many UK owners have tried to make these gauges more accurate but most have come to the conclusion that the trip meter method is safer.
Ah, but my gauge isn't actually broken. There just isn't a sender in the tank I am using.
I have heard a lot over the years about the inaccuracy of Honda fuel gauges, but the ones I have had were all perfectly consistant. In each case when the tank was full the needle was well past the top of the scale and it didn't fall back to the top of the scale for quite a distance (something like 65 Km on my '83 GoldWing), but that doesn't really matter. What matters for a fuel gauge is that it tells you when you are going to run out. On my '83 GoldWing's gauge, for example, the needle is over the tiny space between the red line and the white line when the engine sputters and I have to switch to reserve. The remainder of the needle's travel is, from what I can tell, a pretty linear representation of how much fuel is left in the tank. It has been like that for the entire time I have had it on the road. You can't ask for much better than that.
But, out of habit, I still reset the trip meter every time I fill up.
BTW: I goofed above: The new dash will have speedo, tach, temp gauge, voltmeter and idiot lights.
I think I will get an Equus automotive temp gauge to go with my Equus voltmeter and the idiot lights will probably be LEDs because it will be easier to build a suitable panel for them.
sdrake wrote:well ive got an idea but its not a fuel gauge its a low level light. while around the house the other day i noticed that those little household waterfall have a low level sensor in them that shuts the pump off after it gets so low. so i started thinking if i could take this sensor out, mount in fuel tank and wire it to trip a led light to indicate low gas level. i dont see why it wouldnt work. just a thought i had
I still say it's easier to just use the trip meter.
It's more reliable than any gauge and it's already on the bike.
BTW: A low voltage spark under water wouldn't hurt anything, but under gasoline.........