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Nomad 1500FI Issue

321 Views 10 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  kjmdrumz3, 
K
Good day, ladies and gents! New member here. Just bought this 2000 Nomad today. Test rode fine. After about 40 minutes and 30 miles I gave it full throttle and it started to go, then bogged down, started to go, then bogged down again. It continues to do it as long as I keep the throttle pinned. Definitely didn’t do it in the first 10 or 15 minutes. Has me a bit concerned. Absolutely beautiful bike, but I feel like a fuel pump is in my future. Although, the guy did say that it was recently replaced. I’ll have to check with him.
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K
Now doing it pretty much off idle. Went for a ride and almost couldn’t accelerate without the stumbling and bucking. Luckily, I wasn’t far from the house. Also, when I shake the bike from side to side I hear a very pronounced “clunk” sound with the gas sloshing around.
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Sabre-t
If the previous owner put in an aftermarket fuel pump, that could be the issue. A lot of folks have had problems with none OEM pumps.
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K
I had a Honda VTX 1800 awhile back that had sort of a similar issue. The entire fuel pump assembly was gummed up terribly. Ran fine at idle, also revving the engine cause no issues. Only under load did it do it.
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K
This bike had been sitting “for a year”. New fuel pump, filter, fluids, etc.
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K
So I sort of figured out what the clunking is. Gonna have to wait to get in there, but I found a small (maybe 1" to 1-1/2") round black rubber or plastic ball with a threaded stud coming out of one side of it. Maybe a float? It's obviously supposed to be attached to something. I've looked up Kawasaki parts and am unable to identify exactly what it is. I'll try to get a picture, but it's going to be difficult.
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K
This is the best I could do. Couldn’t get the phone to focus. It's just rattling around in there.
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Sabre-t
Looking at the exploded parts diagram, that doesn't look like the OEM float (it is square in the diagram, but that could have changed since the diagram was drawn), but it could be an aftermarket float that has come off.
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K
Changing plugs this afternoon. The old ones don’t look bad but I was told that they were NOT changed when pump, filter, etc. was. Lord knows how old they are. The front tire has a 2004 date code 😮 Also been looking for a new set of tires. Seems none of the normally recommended sets (Commander 2 or 3, American Elite, etc) have front tires available. As much as I hate to put D404s on, I may have to.
Regardless, the tank needs to come off. Looking forward to that 😂
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M
I experienced this on an '07 1600, never did figure it out. I swapped fuel pumps, ECU, and spark plugs, all to no avail. Troubleshooting suggestions from various forums included the coils, and possibly the EFI wires where they connect to the cylinders. Someone suggested they'd got kinked and shorted out once the bike warmed up. I was roughly 75K miles into that motor at the time.

I couldn't figure it out and it was really messing with vacation, so I parked the bike in '15, and have it awaiting a full work-through some winter. That happened when I was in the middle of my annual Sturgis migration, a (then new) Indian was already planned for, so I picked one up and have been enjoying it every since.

No idea as to what's inside the tank, I haven't seen anything like it during my disassembly. The pump and filter are a single unit, with nothing else in there.
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K
Got it all cleaned up and put back together. It’s definitely a float. But I think it was installed wrong. Definitely haven’t heard another bike make a clunking sound due to the in-tank float. One other thing is a high idle. Sometimes it settles out and sometimes it doesn’t. Bike also seems to shake a bit more than it should.
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