Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Oh $&%^!!!!

I just finished a rather ill fated search of the forums ofr say the last 3 years. I have been working on my bike since April getting it up to speed...and did. Rode to work this morning, coming off the on ramp, on it pretty hard, the thing just dies...I mean like you hit the kill switch. I costed to the shoulder pulled the clutch, it fires right back up. I jet down the freeway about a 1/4 mile, dies again. Not a right side or left side power loss, complete shut down but all lights still work, dash and heads. I get it fired and continue to work, 25 miles without issus. On the way home it does it again with a semi on my left and one behind me...the shoulder of course is only on the left on this stretch of road. I go through the same drill, get into neutral pull the clutch and fire it right up, continue home without incident.....Is this the CDI gremlin??? I put brand new Nology coils on it last week, plugs are good and the wires appear to be fine. It does not spit, miss sputter at idle, warm up or getting to speed. At 4000 RPMS it is literally like I reach up and hit the kill button. Tank is vented, and working, vent line is not crimped? Say it isn't so Alice!!!!!!!

I know you said the tank is venting, but that still sounds like it could be your issue. Have you tried loosening the gas cap and ride it like that to see if it still dies? Just a thought.

Sounds to me like you may have a short somewhere or the gas tank isn't venting right. All the CDI failures I have heard of so far sputter or lose 1 cyl. they didn't just quit. Could be wrong though.

You say you installed new coils...check your connections and make sure they are all good all the way to the plugs.

Similar issue was happening to Karens bike. One item I found was a loose coil wire...the other possible issue I found on her bike was all the Ca emission junk.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the input fellers. I will start tracking it down tomorrow night. I appreciate it.

Be sure to check the obvious, like the ignition switch, kill switch, kickstand switch, and all associated wiring.

Exactly the same issues happened to me when the rollover valve seized up and my bike was starved of fuel. I would be looking at your tank venting issue first.

Anyone else who is reading this should who isn't also aware of this issue, take note cos it can happen anyway like it did with me in the middle of nowhere. Luckilly for me I had taken note from this brilliant site and fixed it myself on the side of the road

Could not be patient and wait till tonight...I pulled the tank, checked the cap and the venting in the tank. ALl of that is clear. Here is an oddity. I can blow through the vent hose with quite a bit of resistance. IF I try to pull back through it, it shuts down. That means the one way valve is working correctly? I went through all of my wiring and now the driving lights won't work. I will run all the connections on them tonight, problem may be a short in the driving lights, can't imagine that killing the ignition but I don;t know what all those things tie in to. Thanks, guys.

I had the same problem with 200 miles on my bike, dealer found it to be the "crank pickup" if I recall correctly.

The sensor under the right side engine cover that is mounted to sense the magnets on the rotor that tell the ignition when to fire. The spec for the gap there was changed to .8mm.

Took it tdown again this afternoon. I found two things, bad grounds on the light bar and this is weird, the turn signal selector, orange and green wire inside the left hand control housing had a pinch in it. It did not look like enough to effect anything but a couple jiggles and the blinker stopped working. I wonder if that thing was intermittently grounding on the bars. Still seems odd that it would kill the entire ignition circuit. I will cross my fingers and toes and try another ride to work in the morning. Hope that fixed it. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

EZ

Good detective work Ezcue, I hope that was your issue. Mine did the same thing two years ago, scared the crap out of me by stalling out in the fast lane, in a construction zone on I-81 (downright dangerous). I pulled my crank side cover and check the gap on the ignitor, found it to be OK and buttoned it back up (a bit of a job, getting the gasket off) and the problem hasn't returned yet.