Flyinfool

I am sure that this is electrical in nature. If it were fuel related the tach would not instantly go to zero, and the cruise would not instantly shut off and it would still crank with the start button. At this point I have the side stand switch jumpered, the kill switch jumpered, the tip over bypassed, the neutral switch bypassed and the issue is still there. A bad coil or TCI would not show all of these issues at the same time. The only thing left is a bad wire or a bad connector. everything else is either bypassed, jumpered or removed from the circuit. But then it is getting worse. So maybe soon it will fail altogether so that I can track it down. Bet ya never heard anyone WISH for a failure real soon........

I'm not old enough for that yet........

Well it is not just the kill switch. Went to head out for a test run to day with the kill switch jumpered out. I made it a whole half of a block and the same. My emergency jumpers got me back home. The only option left is a bad connection or a damaged wire SOMEWHERE. Since it is intermitant, there is no sure way to test for the problem, so I now have to start designing and build my LED test board so that when it does intermit I can quickly look down to see which led is indicating an issue. Did I ever mention that I HATE intermitent issues more than Big Tom hates SNOW.

Look at all of the noggin lumps someone saved you......

:sign yeah that: Its not about brawn or weight, It is all technique to get the bike up on the center stand. I am not a small or wimpy person either, but I could not for the life of me get the bike up on the center stand. When I went back to the dealer that I bought it from I asked the salesman about it. He came outside and the bike just jumped up on center for him. He is all of 5'6" and maybe 120 lbs soaking wet with a lot of pocket change. Once he showed me how to do it, its nothing.

As long as there is no Green Bay Packer bike around.........

Now why would one park at a 2nd gen crossing to look for 1st gens???? Since the 2nd gens are now discontinued antiques, it is obvious that the trailer is there waiting for second gens.

If the oil is more than halfway up the sight glass, but below the top, it will not hurt anything. BUT you will get blow by out the breather and the oil will accumulate in the air filter box and make a mess. Center stand or on the wheels but upright makes very little difference, if you check it on the side stand you will end up way over filled. I check it on the center stand because it is very hard to check it while sitting on it. I put in 3 quarts and then start it and let it run for a minute or so to fill the filter and lines. I then top off to about 1/4 up from the bottom of the sight glass. If you ask 10 different people on this site you are likely to have 10 different answers on this one.

When I did my dash with all LEDs I wanted brighter so that I could see them when the sun is shining on the dash from over my shoulder. The one exception is the High beam indicator. I had a bright blue LED for that one but it was blinding at night, I had to order a less bright blue LED bulb. As mentioned it will take other wiring mods to replace the flasher, but it can be done. the 41R relay also has the starter cutoff relay in it, you probably want to keep that. I believe the sensor wires on the speedo are also used by the cruise control, so pulling those will also kill the cruise. Load resistors for the turn signals is not an issue as far as amps are concerned. The load resistors would only affect the current draw while the turn signal is actually illuminated. How much time does the turn signal bulb actually spend on. Not much. When you have the turn signal on the bulb is only lit 50% of the time, and then you actually only use your turn signals a few seconds at a time. Worst case is that they may be on for a whole minute while sitting at a red light. a typical turn the signal is only on for about 15 seconds or less. All of the other times you are getting the reduced amps of the LED bulbs in the running lights which are on all of the time.

Catch it, they are expensive........ Next time put a leash on it........

Time for some new shorts.......

57F is 3 degrees warmer than I keep the tstat set at. I would have opened the windows to let the heat in. we were in the 40s 3 days ago and will be in the 90s by weekend. My furnace has not run since April.

Glad you made it there with no issues. I assume that since you are going back for physical and drug test that the interview went well????? With the oil leak, I would at each gas stop, pop it up on the center stand to check the oil level. You would hate to seize the motor at this point due to lack of oil. I hope you are back to work real soon.

HEY! This is supposed to be a PG site. What is with using all of these 4 letter words....... I am still hunting for a replacement kill switch. Bike not going anywhere for a while.

I will look to see if I still have the wrench for that. I am not sure if it was in the tool box that grew legs out of the back of my truck or a different tool box. If I still have it, it will be a tight fit but I think I can squeeze it in there.

Sheesh.......

My 88 turns right around 4100 at 65 mph in 5th. Assuming that you were going at a common interstate speed limit of 65. Most trucks do real close to the speed limit. Then to go from 4100 to 6500 rpm is an increase of, 6500 ÷ 4100 = 1.58537, so 65 MPH X 1.58537 = 103.05 mph. Or as Yammer Dan would say, "Time to start thinking about shifting out of 3rd"

Looking forward to it. I will bring my carb tune and my electrical stuff box and a box of RUM balls. As long as there is a semi level spot to pitch my house.... errr tent. I will be fine. I sure hope I get my gremlins out of the bike before then.

Sorry, I assumed valve covers.

The kill switch does have a wiping action on all of the contacts. When I was having the problems the very first thing I did was to vigorously exercise the kill switch. That did not help at all. There is no sign of heat on any of the switch contacts or the plastic around them. The more I think about it the more I think it is going to be a flaky wire or connector in the harness somewhere. The switch is definitely broken so I will fix that first, IF I can find one. Tomorrow I will find out if my repair will hold at all. Bakelite is not real good to glue to, and then there is not much surface area to work with. I cleaned it and roughed it up as best I could and JB Weld is a pretty good epoxy.

Nice job.......I mean shame on you........

The JB Weld on the switch should be set up by tomorrow night and I can then put it all back together and head out for a 60 or so mile test ride. I may be doing a lot of 60 mile test rides in the next week. If it is not the switch, then I will have to make and install an idiot light board. It will be a small circuit board with a bunch of LEDs, each one connected to some part of the circuit. I will then be able to tell in real time which part of the circuit is going out. But this is a PITA to implement. The thing that really surprised me through this whole ordeal, was that being in a rest stop parking lot with half the fairing off and scattered every where, in the whole day only one person asked if I had a problem. That one person happened to have a chunk of cable big enough and with the right terminals to make the jumper for jumping the solenoid. There were many bikers that just walked past looking at the show. I don't know if I just looked like I had it under control or was already in deeper than what anyone thought they could possibly help with.

Its been a few years, but I thought that those were shoulder bolts to hold on the valve covers...... They have been known to snap off if over tightened while trying to stop a leak.

Well after my "interesting" ride home from MD, I have finally started in on the bike. I am writing this up to give an idea of one way to track an intermittent issue. I never went to the school of "Throw money into new parts untill the issue goes away" First the symptoms. At random times while on the interstate the engine would shut off. Some times it was just a barely detectable hiccup, other times it would kill long enough to coast from 75 down to 60 mph. Of course if it did a kill thing at lower speed the engine would be stop all together. When the engine would kill the tach would drop to zero, even though it was still in gear and momentum was spinning the engine. With every tiny little hiccup the cruise would kick out. When the engine did die because I was going to slow for momentum to keep spinning it over, the starter would not engage to attempt a restart. It seemed to get worse with the distance of any single leg. When I would leave a rest stop it would be perfect for 25-30 miles, it would then start with an occasional hiccup, by 30-35 miles it was getting near the point of hard to continue. Fortunately that is also about the same distance as the rest stops along the interstate. At least I never got stranded along the side of the road, I was always able to limp into the next rest area. A few times coasting with no power. So now I know that I have an intermittent issue, that I believe is electrical. If it was fuel related the tach would not drop to zero with the engine spinning. What I did while on the way home; Bypassed the side stand switch. Removed the side stand relay. Added a jumper to run the starter motor when needed. After a lot of studying of the wiring diagrams I determined that there are only 2 components that could cause all of these symptoms. First is the ignition fuse, it supplies power to all of these circuits. Second is the kill switch, which when open turns off the ignition, the cruise, the tach and disables the solenoid. I have also determined that it is not one of the safety systems. None of them have the ability to disable the starter, just the ignition. Then there is the dreaded third option, an intermittent bad wire or dirty connector somewhere in that same circuit. So this is where the journey begins. I started by inspecting the fuse panel. I do have an AGM fuse panel in place and the contacts in the fuse holder have good tension and are clean. I then went right for dissembling the kill switch. The contacts have a slight discoloration to them but not bad, and some old dried grease, again not bad. It did not look near bad enough to cause an issue. But stranger things have happened. The next thing I noticed, well actually it was the first, but there is a small piece of black plastic (pic of it in my hand) was floating around in there. It fell out as I opened the switch to expose the contacts. After some head scratching I determined that it is from the top of the black triangle that the wires attach to. it is the pivot point for the switch rocker. Me thinks we might just have a smoking gun here. If the switch rocker is able to move around it could lose contact and turn things off. So now I get to start hunting for a new kill switch plate. In the meantime I will attempt a temporary repair of this one till I find a replacement. The broken switch does not explain why after every rest stop cool down all was good for the next 20 or so miles then it would start acting up again. I think there may be more issues. But I will Repair or replace anything faulty that I find while working on this. To this end I am going to install a temporary over ride switch that will put battery power direct to the TCI, and disable the safety systems so that during testing, if it should cut out and not want to come back, I am not stranded somewhere. I will also wire in a push button switch direct for the solenoid, again bypassing all of the safeties. Once I isolate and fix the problem ALL systems will be returned to normal with all safety systems in place and functioning.

Most people over tighten plastic ties. Over tightening will cut wires.