Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech My new Speedmaster stalls out!

My new '04 has 880 miles on it. Three times during the break in period it stalled out. It always happened at about 80 miles into a fresh tank of gas so my initial reaction was to go to reserve. But it still went dead. I would come to a halt, then it would start again and everything was fine. It wasn't gas because I immediately fueled up and it took less than 2 gallons. It happened a fourth time on my way to the shop the other day. They could not imitate the occurance, so all I get is a note on my service record of what is happening. I picked it up today and now a fifth stall out ocurred, again at 80 ish miles (??) except this time it wouldn't start back up. After a rest, it did start for a short time but then died again. The shop asked me to check to make sure the electric is working if and when it is stalling out and there is no sign that the electric is out while the engine is shutting down. Any ideas out there as to what might be happening? Thanks!!!

I am breaking in my new America also. Got about 230 miles on her. I will hit the eighty miles or so on the trip odometer tonight or tomorror night.I'll see if I can dupe your problem. Al

There is a vent line under your tank, wonder if maybe it is pinched and the tank is building a vacuum. You can either take a vacuum pump and attach it to the vent pipe inside the fuel fill neck and see if you can build vacuum (you shouldn't be able to) or ask the dealer to check that if they haven't.

Did the dealer's people actually do anything or just try to reproduce the problem?

Here's a couple of things I would try that requires very little work. Although I doubt this is a fuel problem, try opening your gas cap after it dies. Do you get a sucking sound like a vacuum breaking? That would be the vent hose pinched (look way up under the right front of the gas tank and you will see a small hose attached to the tank). Another fuel issue could be the petcock screens (in the tank) being blocked but I doubt that.

Check your battery connections. You will have to remove the faux air cleaner on the left side (chrome cheese grater looking thing) and then remove the plastic piece underneath. This is my main suspect.

Check your fuses, pull and re-seat each of them. Is there any white crap on the blades? Fuses and sockets need to be cleaned.

When she dies, does the headlight, all turn signals, dash lights, work? If so, I would check the sidestand switch. If not, maybe the red cutoff switch is malfunctioning.

Will she crank and not start or does it not crank at all?

These are off the top. Let us know....

Thanks for these ideas.

After the first couple of occurrences, the nike started right back up after letting her come to a full stop. The first thing I did was get gas and I do think there was a small sucking sound when I unscrewed the cap. If the vent hose were pinched, would it have started back up?

I did check for turn signals and dask lights - they were working as the bike stalled and afterwards.

It never stopped cranking - just would not start this last time.

The good news is that I had a charity ride planned for Saturday and now I won't break down!

Bob

There should be no vacuum in the tank. The vent hose is routed from the front of the tank, along the backbone, over the carbs, and down in front of the battery (as least mine is). I would follow the hose and see if it is pinched anywhere.

I would also definitely have the sidestand switch checked...

Sounds like the dreaded pinched vent line. It's a common occurrance and easily repaired. Next time the machine dies (and you can do this while rolling if you're careful) unscrew the gas cap. If it fires right up the vent line is the culprit. You'll have to pull the seat and lift the tank, just a bit, and look for the black hose under the right side of the tank along the frame spine. It tends to get pinched between the tank and the tank mount fittings. Seems many dealers cause the pinch while assembling out of the crate. It will run (as you've seen) for a few minutes, so as far as the shop is concerned, it's good to go. And if they don't give you a full tank to start with, you don't find out about it until later. Only when the vacuum from the clogged vent becomes strong enough to stop the flow will everything stop. It happens faster with a full tank since there's less air to compensate. Many of us have pinched the hose after a simple lifting of the tank for almost anything.
And if you're absolutely sure it's not pinched, but the symptoms point to the vent, check for a clogged one-way-vent valve. Follow the vent line down until you come to a black plastic filter looking device. It's a one-way-vent. Some guys hate to think the factory would put anything on a bike that's worthless, so there's an argument that you really need this piece, I needed it to see how far I could throw it... got about 25 yards (it's pretty light plastic).

First suspect is the vent line that others have mentioned. By the way, the dingus at the end of the hose on non-California bikes is a rollover valve to keep the tank from draining through the vent if the bike falls over.

There is a very small chance that you have an ignition controller with a heat problem. You can check for this with one of the cheap, otherwise useless, neon timing lights from the bargain table of the local autoparts store. These things are a very electronics friendly way of checking for a spark.

The dealer was eager to deal with this today now that I actually broke down on the road. It was the vent line, they say. Now here's the next thing. They put on a pair of TOR long silencers and did nothing to the jetting. It actually ran pretty good. While they had the tank off today, they drilled out the fixed air screws so they could play with them and say they "tuned it right up." Now it pops quite a bit and the beginning of the exhaust is yellowing. The mechanic said it pop a but and that it would be a good idea to cut off the secondary air, which would eliminate all this. I wanted to say, well, why didn't you do that while you had the tank off, but I know he didn't think of it until the tank was already back on. Oh well. I guess I get to clean a little more until I figure out how to tune it right. I want the dealer to do the work during the warranty period so there is no way to hide.

It sounds like they left the AI system on. You need to remove that if you don't want blue pipes. The sooner the better.
Witht eh TORs you should also go to about 130 mains too for more giddy up.

General consensus is that the air injection (AI) and lean low idle mix is the primary cause of the pipes to blue. Adjusting the screws will help, but the AI has to go! Some shops won't take it off, but it's easy enough to do yourself and has no effect on the warranty (unless you drop something down the injector hole and try to crank it up). First TORs were said to be able to go on without any jet changes.. who knows. I think an easier quick tinker is to take off the seat and yank off the snorkle. You'll hear the intake wonk like a 2-stroke, but it seemed to me that that one move made the most noticeable difference at the throttle. If you don't like it you can always just stuff it back in, 2-minute off and on.

I think the vent line is going to be the culprit on my bike as well. (see thread "Fule System Surgery"). I have the Pingle, and will install it this weekend although I can't ride for a while yet (see thread "Blew It"). I just walked by the bike and took a sip on the loose vent hose, as the tank has been off. It seems to only work one way - so I'll definitely be tracing it on down to see what's up.

I had been suspecting the vent line for the last few days as it had dawned on me that the two rides I had trouble on were extremely hot days. I had put a lot of miles on between the two occurences, at night or late evenings, with no trouble at all.

I don't know where you live, so I don't know what kind of weather you ride in - maybe it's not even related and just coincidental. It was easily over 90 both times for me.

I drained the tank and carb bowls and found nothing. The micro screen inline filter was also clear.

After removing the P-O-S stock petcock, it's easy to believe improved performance will result from the Pingle installation. Visually, there is no comparison. Glad I had an excuse to get one.

BW,
Uh, it is supposed to only breathe one direction. It is a flapper valve that is there to prevent gas from spilling out of the tank in the event of a laydown. It should suck, but not blow. (Insert all snide remarks here)

Part of what life is about is luck and here is an example why. So it happens I live a couple miles from Dinqua and one hour later my AI is gone and he has new help organizing the September event. Long live the internet! Down with dealers! It also turns out that the stall problem was probably not a fuel vacumn - we couldn't find a pinch anywhere. However, the hose attached to the secondary air had a little metal piece with a knob that was turned inward and sat a pubic hair's width from the spark plug on each side. It was grounding out.

So how was the beer?

No beer for me! The beer nazi took me out of the game. But what a difference in the way my bike is running. Unbelievable.

KWH, why do you think this problem only happens at a certain mileage. I hope you and Dinqua found the problem, but the effect and the cause do not seem to match up? What do you think? Al

I will have to defer to Dinqua - he found it and diagnosed it.

The little metal pinch clamp on the IA tube (All at ground potential) were a pubimeter away from the top of the spark plug wire where it connects to the plug. It was actually touching the rubber part but still close enough so that if it gets really hot and HUMID, like it's been here for the last 6 weeks (90º+ temp and 90+ humidity) it is possible that it could jump the spark and short the plug/coil wire to ground intermittently. Enough to kill the motor.
I cannot prove this is the culprit as Bob's failure was very intermittent as stated. But, as he has stated, it seems to be fixed. We did a very thorough examination of the tank vent and there was no sign that the hose was ever misplaced or pinched anywhere.
Maybe the dealer did correct it, but I would guess that the new design and placement of the clamps on his AI was definetly in need of modification.
I'm sure you have seen enough weird intermittent electronics as well to know this is very likely to be the case. Again, we have had some unbearable heat and humidity which also would contribute to electrical faults as well.

Stupid AI...

I stalled last night (hot and humid weather) although the bike was really trying not to - which is progress and so we are on to something. Prior to the stall I was in 4th for a good stretch at high RPMs and then had to slow down a little faster than would be desired for an upcoming 30mph zone. I have a little popping too out of the left side pipe (to be remedied soon with rejetting,etc). I read somewhere, possibly in this forum, that Lucas Electronics could have been called the "Prince of darkness." I was in the shop yesterday to buy some Blue Out and ran into the service manager...told him about the AI clamps and that the AI should be removed when pipes are changed. He was genuinely happy that progress is being made even if not from his shop. Good people..I can say that as long as I keep my good attitude hat on....but Dinqua is THE MAN.