Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Not a good night

So the weather is beautiful around here, which made the decision to take my bike to my selectman's meeting pretty easy. Now Town Hall is 2 miles from my house so I took one of my favorite senic loops. 30 minutes and 50 miles later I pull into Town Hall. The meeting for a change was quick and I was out of there by 8:30. I skipped the planning board meeting cause I wanted to ride.
So I reversed my loop. Man it was nice, purple sunset the smells of fresh cut lawn, cool lake breeze and the smell of freshly fertilized corn fields.( I actually like the "essence of moo poo smell). Just a nice ride, until I get pulled over for "loud pipes". Come on everyone is picking on my bike cause its quiet, and I get popped?
Whatever I can talk my way out of that. So on with the ride.
I turn onto 43 and start up my favorite uphill winding turn. I'm really letting her go. And suddenly the oil light comes on and she's slowing down. Not good. And its dead. I tried everything to no avail. I did get her to catch twice but it died quickly. Also I got the biggest backfire/airbox KaBoom, ever so add that to the list. After the kaboom the starter isn't engaging. So I start pushing back to the nearest phone, since I left my cellphone conveniently in my truck. And not one person stopped and asked "why are you pushing your motorcycle down the road?" Did you know that toll calls on a payphone are a buck?? Holy crap. The phone systems still aren't working 100% since our flood last month,so I had to call my Father in law who called my wife. Luckily she was able to talk our neighbor into coming out to help, since she's preggo and shouldn't be lifting dead bikes into our pickup. And a big thanks to guy who stopped with a ramp. That was perfect.
So anyway now its the best riding weather of the year, and I'm sans bike.

Any guesses on what broke? I'm thinking oil pump.
Luckily its under warranty, now if I can just talk them into a loaner.

How's your oil level?

It was fine when I checked it yesterday.
No leaks.
I couldn't get enough light off the phone booth to see.

And the oil didn't smell burnt, I'm really hoping this isn't a seized engine.

Another good use for cellphones!

Kinda sounds like you seized the motor. Ouch....

Ok now your not helping me get to sleep Phil.
Worst case senario. No oil=seized motor which in turn= no warranty. So I agree with Brian wiseco,this would have fried what? Pistons and bore only? or worse?

Wouldn't warrent cover it if it was due to oil pump failure?

Dill

I hope it is nothing serious *fingers crossed*

I know what its like to be w/o bike in nice riding weather.

Hope you get it fixed quick and are back on the road soon

Trev

Wow, thats sad. Won't start, oil light came on. Hope the symptoms are not the real deal.

You are right, Wisco would maybe even be cheaper than an OEM rebuild. You have to do the cylinder work anyhow if it cooked.

Good luck.

time to call Shelly!

I'm headed to Shelly in an hour.

You feel like doing a big bore?
My garage or yours?

might get more done in mine...lets hope we don't need to discover this!

Well I just spoke with Shelly their booked up, can't look at it till Friday.
I'm headed over to drop it off. Its already in the truck.
I can see oil in the sight glass. Its low but the bike is cranked over the other way.
I have a bad feeling that this is serious.

back-fire (loud) as you say, and no restart, sounds like a possible candidate for a boat anchor . I had one swallow a valve a few years back and it sounded exactly as you described. Good luck to ya.

OUCH! I hope it isn't a swallowed valve!! That could be really bad. I really hope it turns out for the best it can under these circustances. I pulling for ya dude.

I'm praying for a busted cdi or ingniter.
Theres plenty of oil in there.
And it didn't seemed seemed seized. But I have to wait till friday afternoon before they will check it out.
Crossing my fingers. I had a club ride scheduled for sunday and my pipes are coming in from CA tomorrow.
I guess I will have to cram myself onto the wifes bike.

Did you try pulling the plugs and put it in 5th gear and turn the engine over with the rear wheel?

I am ashamed to admit that I didn't have my tool kit with me last night. After all I was only a few miles from home....right? I learned that lesson. I did put it into 4th and attempted a bump start to no avail. And then decided that took too much effort and I should just get to the corner store.
That backfire had me wondering if it was completely of a time all of a sudden. (like bad valve, or broken cam chain.)

I had a problem with water intrusion in the sidestand switch a few years ago and when it shut down and I tried to fire it back up, it would backfire loudly. I attibuted it to unburnt gas in the pipe and did not worry about it.

Let's try taking the high road for a minute. Until you've tried to spin the engine (i.e., remove your plugs and spin the rear wheel in gear - You can't rule out that it may be completely electrically induced (the engine stopping for whatever reason will bring the light on). If your engine will turn, you aren't siezed. Be sure to check the easy stuff before you panic and rip it apart. Oh, and best of luck.

I'm with pipedr on this one. It is probably a "simple" lectrik or loss of air issue and hopefully not a seizer. If it seized up, it would have locked you right up and done a power slide.
Hope it is something simple.
Do not over diagnose it, things like this usually turn out to be the easiest thing to fail. The oil lamp will come on regardless whenever the motor shuts down, don't think the worst, think SIMPLE! Look for things like a lose battery wire, bad plug, bad CDI, pinched wires... if it turns over, the motor is most likely fine. If a valve gets sucked/bent it will make a lot of mechanical noise (ask me or Jaymo how we know this) and blow a ton of smoke out the pipes at the same time. Kinda hard to miss this sure tell sign of valve eatin.

I think you 2 are right. I was more than a little pissed last night. And Phil asking about the oil level freaked me out. And having a dead bike in the dark with that little red light staring up at me made me wonder even more.
Unfortunately I can't look at the bike since its at the dealer which stinks. But the dealer pretty much said the same thing. Its probably just a cdi/black box foul up. And it should be under warranty.

Ok I just talked to the service writer. We have serious carnage. The clutch didn't seem right to them. (note this might not be completely accurate, the service writer is not a tech.)
Anyway the case protrusions holding the clutch in place broke, allowing the clutch to leave its orginal position and its now all resting quite a bit from where it belongs.
So they are trying to get some new cases under warranty, they have never seen this happen before.
I'm hoping to talk to them about a loaner since this will be a while. And there was no spark but they haven't even started to play with that.

OUCH!! I hope the warrenty thing works out for you and that there isn't any other big ticket damage!

They are talking to triumph right now. The really odd thing here is that an 05 Bonnie came in last week with the exact same problem. So 2 in one week of an odd break gets people's attention.

Okey Dokey.

The igniter failed (Rob Shelly didn't want me to tell you this), causing the bike to die. But the failure was intermittent which allowed me to fire it quickly twice. Evidently there was enough gas built up that the backfire blew the sprag clutch mount back trough the case into the other side of the motor.
Triumph is aware of this happening very rarely (Like I said they have a standard bonnie in with the same problem). And they have beefed up the cases to prevent this from happening again.
I guess this explains why it was the loudest ****** back fire I have ever heard.
Hopefully if none of the parts are backordered she will be up by the end of next week.

They should give you a whole new motor, and take yours to study what happened.
Good Luck!
Uncle Charlie

Charlie, I was thinking the same thing, but triumph doesn't do whole motors. At least you saw this bike running one time. The other time it was on fire.

Dill,

What is the final outcome is Trimuph going to cover the repairs ? So you ended up with an electrical failure on top of the clutch failure also ???

Rob,

Did you ever get the starting problem fixed ?

Nope still got the "secret squirle" starter button...I told them they could have it when the season is over...it works the way it is right now...but I can't ride now anyway...that Fkin knife is STILL in my back from GA...though it was better...did 36 miles (in 4, 9 mile legs) and now it's stuck right in my back again...

Rob,

I have the same thing as soon as I go a few miles it starts buring again, That whole area right below my neck is still numb. I went to the Doc's and he gave me a muscle relaxer, but all it did was mess me up for a few days.

I still get a shooting pain into my shoulder once in awhile to. It got better for awhile when I did not ride.

What the he** did we do?

My theory is that comes from the America bars being so wide.
Hence, my change to SM bars.

At this point its all covered by triumph, warranty wise. All tho I wonder about my brand new oil change. I feel bad for the other guy with the same problem. His Bonnie cases are backordered. They are giving me a loaner for the long weekend wahoo, I'm jonesing hard watching everyone ride. Triumph does not do a loaner program its up to each dealer and they are not reimbursed for the cost.

Dill,

Good dealer makes these bumps in the road a little smoother.

Have a great weekend see in at the rally.

Wow Alden, sorry to hear about your bike...What was the year and model? How many miles on it, and are there any mods that have been done on your bike prior to your mechanical breakdown? This would be good info for the rest of us to know.