I finally started trying to ride my GS for longer periods of time now that it's registered/inspected and I can go farther than 2 blocks from my house. After riding yesterday for maybe 5-10 minutes, and then again today after almost an hour I've had my bike just instantly shut off on me. I'm curious why.
Now my first guess is full starvation. Both times that it did it my bike was turns to "on", I switched it to PRI, gave it 30 seconds and it started again and ran fine. I should mention the second time, after I said I had been riding for an hour, the bike had been on PRI the whole ride, but a little before that I said "ooh, I wonder if it'll run right on "on", so I turned it to on. I'm sure I'll narrow it down eventually, but it's only been out twice now, so it could be completely coincidence. The bike might've just needed a minute to reset whatever else it as doing, and me turning the gas from ON to PRI really did nothing. The only reason I'm not already 99% assuming it's a messed up petcock is because it never sputtered like it was slowly running out of gas. On time I was slowing at a stop sign and it just instantly shut off, and the second time I was riding down a quiet road about 30moph and it again just shut off. No gurgling, bogging, or sputtering. Will bikes shut off that quick if it's a fuel starvation problem? The only reason I'm asking you guys instead of just trying it out some more is because I don't want to be 30 miles away from home, turn the bike to PRI, and realize that's not the issue. Shutting off that quick sounds like something electrical to me. When I stopped both times my lights and everything was still on, so I'm assuming that if it is electrical, some connection just broke loose for a second, long enough to kill the motor, and then came back on. If that's the case I'll have to remember to just try and let the clutch out again next time, and if that's what it is the bike should bump start itself like when you turn off your kill switch and turn it right back on. Both times so far I've just pulled in the clutch and pulled over, so I didn't think to test that.
I'll also make sure to start out with the gas set to ON, and see if it dies. Give it 30 seconds with the gas still set to ON and see if it restarts. If it doesn't, and I set it to PRI then it restarts, I'll have a good idea. I obviously don't want to sit on the side of the road somewhere just hitting the start button over and over to test it and end up with a dead battery.
hmm.... that got long! what do you guys think? Electrical or fuel?? Once I narrow it down I think I'm gonna flip the petcock switch around like I found out you could do to override the vacuum and just leave yourself with an on/off/reserve.
I think fuel starvation just sputters out.
Instant stop sounds electrical. Sidestand switch would do this to you.
Good thinking! My sidestand springs aren't what they once were. I've definitely noticed a bit of play in my sidestand even when it's up, and do remember looking at that a little when I was installing it. I'm going to home depot tomorrow, I'll see what they've got in springs, otherwise I'll get creative with what I've got!
Quote from: Paulcet on April 24, 2010, 02:25:23 PM
I think fuel starvation just sputters out.
Instant stop sounds electrical. Sidestand switch would do this to you.
I'll second this, having had the same problem. when I first installed my shortened sidestand switch, I left one of the springs out, and everytime I would hit a bump the engine would cut out
Bypass your sidestand switch, ride, realize. .:-)
What do you have to do to bypass it? Just unplug it, or do the wires still need to be connected?
I was thinking about just attaching something to the little plate on the kickstand that presses up against the switch, whether I just wrap a ziptie around it, drill a hole and put a small bolt through it, or just glue something to it to make contact sooner. I don't think I'll just remove it as a long term solution because I'd like it to be there for when Heather starts riding the bike again.