I was excited by this product when it first came out because I thought it could protect me from fuel related headaches when over-landing – here is the original article.
However, I am now having to rethink the advantages of the Guglatech fuel filter. Last week I started winterizing the motorcycles (winterizing article) I was not sure if the Guglatech fuel filter works with StarTron so I typically remove it for the winter and use treated fuel from ~November – ~March. This year when I went to remove the Guglatech fuel filter only the Adapter Ring came out – meaning the rest of the filter was floating around in the tank. Ironically, this meant that the filter had went from filtering things out of my tank to becoming an obstruction in the tank it was supposed to be protecting.
To be honest I don’t know exactly when the filter detached from the Adapter Ring but I am pretty sure it happened about a month ago because that’s the same time the bike would blow a little amount of white smoke from the exhaust when starting, if the bike had been setting for 3 days or longer. My guidance to people with the Guglatech fuel filter would be to take it out once a month and check it. The fuel filter is heat bonded to the adapter ring and should not just pop off as there are no chemical adhesives that could have dissolved.
If you find yourself in this situation, I highly suggest the ~$3 “24 In. 2-In-1 Magnetic Pickup Tool” from Harbor Freight. It worked very well and was better then needing to remove the entire tank.
I was communicating to David Petersen (https://bestrestproducts.com/) who I personally trust and have spent a fair amount of money with. David told me “this can be caused by sticking the fuel nozzle into the tank too far (or too hard), which tears the filter away from the nozzle.” He also told me this had only ever happend to one other person and that is what they had done. IT is absolutely possible, even though I don’t think I had been doing anything different then normal fueling (but its possible). BestRest products went above and beyond and where willing to replace my filter even though its over a year old.
Please bear in mind that I continue to use my Guglatech Air filter, BestRest CyclePump, and BestRest Tire tools but as of right now I have removed the Guglatech Fuel Filter sticker from my pannier. The main reason is because there was a lot of fraying of the fuel filter. Some of this obviously came from the fishing tool I used to remove the filter. However I retrieved it on the second attempt so I think most of the fraying came from it being pumped around the bottom of the tank for the last couple of weeks (before I noticed it had detached). The result being that it seems to become more of a thing to worry about while over-landing and thus is being removed.
TheMotoLizard
