Fuel Issue?

[BottomFeeder]

Yesterday, something weird happened. As I was getting on the interstate, the on-ramp made a big left curve then a big right curve before it straightened up. I was riding a little more aggressively than I normally do(leaning more into the curves). When I straightened up and started accelerating to merge with traffic, I started to lose power(like I was out of gas) until it finally quit. So I'm sitting on the side of the road for maybe 15 mins(seemed longer), poking prodding and jiggling wires and hoses, I finally decided to dig my tools out and see if there was any spark. I also tried to start it a coupla times prior to this, it would crank but not fire. I couldn't hear the fuel pump, but that may be just because of road noise. Anyway, after I got the right rear spark plug wire off, as I tried cranking the bike, it started up. I returned home(~15-20 miles), riding hard, and it ran fine.

 

Any ideas?

 

In case it doesn't show up in my profile, I'm riding a 2013 RSV

[wrenchrob]

Wow that's a tough one. I'm just guessing but I wonder if your fuel pump quit working and after cooling down it started working again.

[MikeWa]

Sounds like you were running out of gas. How full was the tank? Was it low enough to g-force the full away from the pickup? I would certainly be taking it in for a warranty check over. If nothing else a new (warranty) fuel pump would eliminate that as the culprit.

 

Mike

[RIB III]

It's the fuel pump. Been there done that!!! More to the point it's the points in the fuel pump.

[BottomFeeder]

OK, I had plenty of fuel, only ~45 miles on the tank. I thought about the points, but the bike only has 19K on it, which I guess doesn't really mean anything. I guess it's time to let the "professionals" take a look. As I (think I) posted earlier, I don't have a lot of faith in these local guys in figuring this out and it will mean giving the bike up for a few days one way or another. Besides that, I kinda like doing my own work when I can. Thanks guys

[billmac]

are you sure you didn't bump the kill switch ?

[djh3]

It sounds real close to what my 09 would do. Only mine was when you would switch from main to reserve. If you got it early it seemed, the pump would be fine. If you let it go until it missed quite a bit, the pump wouldn't catch. Almost like it got hot and had to cool off a bit. After it almost got me run over twice, I installed a Mr Gasket. but yours is still under warranty. Maybe explain to the dealer the issue all of us have figured out on the fuel pumps. Take them a couple of pictures, you know point them in the direction and see if they will check it out. you need to let the dealer at least take a stab at it. Oh and you may wiggle in something like "if this happens to me and someone gets hurt, the next guy in here will be lawer" or something like that if you get a noncommittal response to looking at it. Unfortunately most dealers are not real familiar with the RSV/TD bikes. Even though there have been 10's of thousands of them sold.

[BottomFeeder]

are you sure you didn't bump the kill switch ?

 

Not this time