Raw Fuel Smell/ Gas Boiling in Tank

I plugged up my canister by filling the bike with a gas can and spilling gas down the vent hose, which goes to the canister. After riding the bike home from work that day it smelled like gas, was gurgling heavily and when I opened the cap gas sprayed out of the tank. For 3 years after that it would occasionally idle very slowly and stall if you didn't hold the throttle open a bit. I always wondered if the evap system was purging at idle and either was running rich due to a saturated canister or trying to draw air through the canister but couldn't , causing a rich condition either way. I do believe that a saturated or plugged canister will cause drivability problems whatever the reason. My problem finally went away, I still have the original canister.
 
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Additionally, these guys have a lot of heat building up inside the fairings from lack of speed to keep an air exchange. They would benefit from drilling holes in the inner cowls to let fresh air in. Another clue would be if the rad fans are coming on when they stop moving. When they kick in, they will put load on the system, which may change performance at idle. Obviously, many factors involved, but in reality, the bike should be kept moving at some highway speed, not constant running in low speed school zones.
 
The overflow hose on my ST dumps fuel directly on the ground under the bike. BTDT, be careful pulling away, gas under the rear tire is really slippery!

If the over flow hose (that hose outside the sealed opening) goes to the charcoal cannister it's misrouted.
 
WJB you are correct. The hose to the canister connects to a fitting on the bottom of the tank. That screws up my theory of saturating my canister when I filled my tank with that gas can with no spout.
 
I live in Phoenix and have a 2003 with about 44K miles on it. I have also noted the gas boiling inside the tank. No performance issues.
I hope you'll post the solution when you find it.
 
woodybelle said:
WJB you are correct. The hose to the canister connects to a fitting on the bottom of the tank. That screws up my theory of saturating my canister when I filled my tank with that gas can with no spout.
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Same here, I was thinking a full-canister issue.
 
mikethebike said:
I ride an old cast iron XLCH with the rear cylinder right under your crotch and the exhaust right there with none of the heat issues talked about here and I rode Sporty's for 14 years in Charleston, SC where it regularly hits 100+ and 95% humidity.
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It's also got a fraction of the engine making a fraction of horsepower and is mounted wide open to ambient air. Enclose it in a fairing and you'll have a heat problem.

--Mark
 
There aren't that many bearing failures, in fact honda built in some redundancy in the ST1300 design so a bearing failure should provide you enough warning to get to the side of the road as the other 2 bearings will support the wheel enough to limp it where it to help.

Heat is subjective, some feel it but most don't. It's a big 'water cooled' engine. My Yamaha Super Tenere feels hotter when stopped and the fan comes on, the valkyrie was the same, the Wings never felt hot unless you had a cross wind at just the right angle.
 
MiketheBike,

Sounds like you know what you want - lots of choices, lots of different riding syles - there's something for everyone. Whatever you ride, ride safe and enjoy it.

Regarding your comments about posters here denigrating HDs (Harley Bashing) . . . that's not been my experience here or what I've seen on this site. You'll be welcome at FLSTOC or any other STOC event arriving on an HD or whatever else you want to ride in on. What we have in common is the joy of riding. Although this site focuses on Sport Touring bikes, there are many members who have migrated to other bikes or have other bikes in addition to their ST. Lot's of HD experience on this site.

As to perceived "problems" with the Honda ST1300, most of your comments note subjective posts by members and for the most part seem to ignore the responses that they received which provided the balanced view of what was going on. Sometimes these "problems" were faced by others who found solutions and shared them. Sometimes there's a subjective difference of opinion (heat issues?) that become clearer when polls are created to indicate the strength or weakness of the issue.

Sometimes there is a problem, that although rare, is noted so the community as a whole can maybe recognize and watch for it. An example is the failure of my u-joint on my '08 ST1300 last year. Last time I looked there were only three known occurrences of the u-joint failing. Take my comment out of context, OMG, STs have a u-joint problem! Not so.

As to the question at hand regarding boiling fuel - I've ridden for hours in 100+ degree temps and never experienced this particular problem. Multiple STs and more than a few miles. My experience doesn't include low speed and idle for lengthy periods of time in school zones. It's an interesting "new to me" problem that I haven't seen on this site before. I look forward to your additional feedback as the problem gets worked.

Thanks for your input, :)
Shuey
 
mikethebike said:
It's also cast iron air cooled with the rear cylinder about 3 inches from your crotch and the exhaust pipe is right under your right leg. Plus it was designed in 1956...not 2001. NO motorcycle designed in 2001 should have those kinds of problems. I read here that you should change your rear wheel bearings every time you change your rear tire. My 77 XLCH NEVER had a wheel bearing changed until it was 18 years old and had 100,000+ miles on it. The bearing had not failed at that point.

The BMW was also air cooled, in a fairing, made 95 hp, didn't boil the fuel, didn't expell gas fumes into the air and didn't bake the rider. And while someone here suggested it was by accident, NO BMW in modern times has had those problems.

Maybe the 467 lb wet weight, 150 hp Ducati Multi-Strada is what I should buy. I've talked with dozens of people who ride them and they reported none of those problems.
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I think you should get the Ducati. :D
 
I never said boiling fuel is subjective. I said 'heat' was subjective. Some feel heat from the bike and some don't.

I agree boiling gas is not a good thing, but there are not a lot of instances of this that I've been able to pull from the site posts and I've never had that issue.

Careful mentioning the 'quality' of the Japanese products, most here will agree you'll have a hard time finding better built bikes.

I think the problem is YOU are LOOKING for problems so you're finding them... go on any bike or car site and look for problems, you will find them. What you need to do is try to see all the good, take a look at all the members here that have 50k, 100k miles on their STs... we even have some with 150k, 200k, 250k and 300k. Are they trouble-free miles? Probably not, there's probably some maint items those members had to deal with but doubtful many were considered major.

I bet you could pick any car, truck or motorcycle and I could find a site / forum devoted to that vehicle and within a few mins of searching find problems with them.

There is no perfect bike, you'll never get that guarantee.. you may get a brand new ST1300 and 4 months down the road the battery is dead.

Good luck with your searching, I like my ST. I did have a u-joint issue on mine at 50k miles. Replaced it and I'm probably good for another 50-100k.
 
mikethebike said:
I read here that you should change your rear wheel bearings every time you change your rear tire.
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Well, I don't know who wrote that, but it isn't right. Lots of people here have said you should check your bearings every time you remove a wheel, and that's advice I can agree with.

...NO BMW in modern times has had those problems.
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Perhaps not those particular problems, but BMWs have a set of their own, as do Ducatis and every other marque on the planet. I won't buy a BMW because they have a track record of final drive failures that no Honda in modern times has had. The grass is pretty much the same shade of brown on both sides of all fences.

To answer your question, which I should have done before:

I've owned an ST1300 since 2004, have been very active here and on other sites that cater to STs and would like to think I have a pretty good handle on what this model's problems are. I don't think the things you're concerned about, even this boiling gas thing (which I'll get to in a minute), are common problems. They've happened, and we've discussed them at length, but they're not the norm. Believe me, if there were any really critical problems with this bike, this place would be littered with threads about it.

mikethebike said:
Boiling fuel is not subjective.
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Here's a thread from 2007 on boiling gas that I think covers most of what needs to be said: CLICKY. What I will add to that thread is the fact that the return line from the fuel rails is connected to the lower tank, and the vapors making their way to the upper tank (where the vents are) probably makes it sound a lot worse than it is.

The OP in this thread is in southern Arizona, where they see average highs in excess of 100?F from June through September. That, combined with the fact that fuel additive packages can pull gasoline's boiling point from 450?F down to as low as 100?F, is a recipe for what Turbo Tom described. The fuel you get in South Carolina may have the same problem or it may not. We have plenty of hot weather where I live, and I think I've heard my tank gurgle maybe twice in seven years. I suspect his fuel smell problem is a saturated vapor recovery canister.

...just as the BMW site had some, shall we say.....anal-retentive or OCD types, that some complaints may be somewhat out of proportion to reality.
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I think that falls under the "silent majority" heading. People start threads about problems when they have them. This is the first boiling gas thread we've had in a few years; your arrival here just happened to coincide with it. Had you joined a year ago, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.

Anyway, I'd buy another of these junk heaps in a heartbeat. :)

--Mark
 
BlackPaw said:
Don't the 1100's have a plastic tank?
.
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Nope. It is metal. What you are thinking about is the "gas tank". That is where a normal gas tank would be on a bike like the 5.5 gal upper tank on the 1300. That plastic shelter is for the air cleaner as it is a big round one like what is found on old cars. The gas tank on the 1100 is actually down below the seat on the 1100 like the 2.2 gal reserve on the 1300.
 
"Maybe the 467 lb wet weight, 150 hp Ducati Multi-Strada is what I should buy. I've talked with dozens of people who ride them and they reported none of those problems. "

Sounds like a great bike, but your sampling is in dozens of people!

This site literally has thousands of riders putting in thousands of miles! The st1300 also spans back to 2003, 2002 if you count the pan European. I would think if there were any serious wide spread problems the postings would be overwhelming.

Usually the postings here are for isolated problems in that the membership goes out of its way to help solve.

The st is not perfect, no bike is, what is great for one person may be unfit for another.
Ride what you like!! Or put multiple bikes in your garage, maybe an st and a hd, many here have both.
 
Years ago I had one of those Sportster Cafe things that had been pretty badly used. In Louisiana it gets hot...for a lot of the year and the sporty wouldn't sit in traffic without running poorly when it was hot. The heat from the engine would bake my thighs on either side. I got rid of the bike in about six months because I didn't make enough money to keep working on it and the naked Gold Wing I got after that never had heating problems. I had heat problems going to work in the summer with a Super Glide I had but learned to take a route that involved less lights. I added a bigger oil cooler to the SG that helped some but it always hated sitting and running. It was a kicker so I hated turning it off if I was sitting at a train or something like that. I'll stick with water-cooled bikes..not that I dont' think Harleys are nifty looking.:)
 
Does anyone know what the out come of bigjoez problem? I am having the same problems. I have checked the vent lines and they are clear. Canister is clear also?
 
I had it recently. Never ever heard this before, but that doesn't mean it never happened. It sounded like fuel boiling and there was wet petrol vapour coming from the vent-to-air tube that emerges under the oil filter. In the UK we dont have the canister that you have in the states.

The fuel in the tank wasn't boiling. Somewhere, fuel was vapourising and expanding, probably in the tubes to the injectors. This was being released into the fuel tank. I reckon that the only reason that I heard it on this occasion was because I filled up the tank in the last few miles of a long ride. Normally my tank is nearly empty when I get home, so gasses normally escape into tank above the fuel level. On this occasion they were bubbling up through the petrol in the full tank, making the rather worrying boiling sound.

ST1300 - Fuel Gurgle - Normal or Not | ST1300 Related

It has been a long winter and spring lay off - during which time I have had the fuel tank off, synchronised the starter valves, checked the 5 way tee and reassembled. New fuel joining hose and clamps. I have had a few short rides since then and everything has felt fine - no - everything has...
www.st-owners.com www.st-owners.com
 
My bike gets the bubbles as well. To me it sounds like the 2 fuel cells are just equalizing?
No performance change at all.
 
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