Bike lost power and died

[Barabus]

I have a 2006 with 31K miles. After a 100 mile ride today the bike died 15 feet from my driveway. Talk about lucky, I was riding Sunday evening in the rural areas. Here is what happened, bike lost power- no fuel pump or other engine noises like fan. No headlights, only my dash was lit. But it was not normal dash. Instead, the fuel gauge image would flash on and off. The blinker indicators were steady green. The dash stayed in this state when with the key off and removed! Somewhat reminded of my old '67 Buick special that would "diesel" after being turned off.

I reinserted the key and locked the handlebars. No change- engine still off, no fuel pump, dash still oddly lit. Cycled the key a few times and several minutes later my dash turned off. Restarted the bike and drove into the garage. This bike has had one ignition failure which was replaced in 2008 with an old design ignition. I am running Hella FF50 aux lights and a few other small draw items (radar detector and GPS). The bike has a head bearing upgrade about 400 miles ago. I was less than pleased with the other work and noticed some disruption of the wiring from the suspension and head bearing work. This bike has not had the technical service done on the ignition recall (the newly designed ignition) nor the ground problem. It has an original battery (with a replacement on the bench). BTW, the kickstand switch seems to be functioning properly.

Is this my second ignition switch failure? Is it time to get the recalls done on the ignition and the ground? Or is it something else due to these strange symptoms. I know there are some wiring gurus that might understand these symptoms.

Thanks,

Barry

 

[SkooterG]

Barry, I'm sure some more knowledgeable Gen II dorks will chime in here but it sure sounds like the dreaded 'Gen II wiring harness ground spyder failure' to me.

Are you telling me you never had that recall done? Any Gen II that hasn't had it done is just a ticking time bomb. I know you are a fart smeller, so if you haven't had the recall done I gotta ask: What the hell were you thinking?!?!

Good luck with the resolution.

 

[Barabus]

Barry, I'm sure some more knowledgeable Gen II dorks will chime in here but it sure sounds like the dreaded 'Gen II wiring harness ground spyder failure' to me.

Are you telling me you never had that recall done? Any Gen II that hasn't had it done is just a ticking time bomb. I know you are a fart smeller, so if you haven't had the recall done I gotta ask: What the hell were you thinking?!?!

Good luck with the resolution.

Dealers hate my aftermarket wiring. Beside fart sniffing (only my own farts though- just incase Greg has any sick ideas) and to make matters even worse, I helped with the ignition recall effort! Now I have to decide whether the dealer needs to do two things- the ignition and ground- or three things- the ignition, ground and ?.

 

[JamesK]

What is it they say, a picture tells a thousand words.

 

[kaitsdad]

Barry, I hate to say it, but methinks you've been spider bit.

 

[wfooshee]

Classic symptom of spider failure. It's not the ignition switch.

 

[Barabus]

I appreciate the inputs and the fact that they are unanimous. These opinions are contrary to another well respect opinion that I received, but that is the value of this forum. Time to fix the ground spider. Thanks everyone for taking the time and effort to respond.

 

[Harald]

Almost looks like you might have 2 failures there, Barry. The headlight failure and odd lights on dash are classic spider bite symptoms, but everything usually goes off when you turn the key off. So I think you might also have a ignition switch failure.

In any case, it sounds like you haven't had any of the related recalls done and you may very well be lucky and have the traditional spider failure which will be addressed by the spider recall. If by chance you have a S7 spider failure like I did a couple years ago, then you get to join my exclusive club with a few other select individuals. Regretably, that spider is not addressed by the recall and you'll be on your own paying for repairs (or fixing it yourself). Check THIS THREAD I started to track non-traditional spider failures where I have a nice picture of what caused my headlights to fail (along with funky dash lights).

 

[Barabus]

Lucky me- I get a whole new main wiring harness. Total time- two weeks repair. I just hope I-90 Motorsports does not **** it up.

 

[kaitsdad]

Lucky me- I get a whole new main wiring harness. Total time- two weeks repair. I just hope I-90 Motorsports does not **** it up.

Gee.... Unplug the old, plug in the new... what could possibly go wrong?

 

[escapefjrtist]

Lucky me- I get a whole new main wiring harness. Total time- two weeks repair. I just hope I-90 Motorsports does not **** it up.

Too bad about the harness Barry, but no worries. Between Auburn and ahchiu, we've got the electrical knowledge to fix anything that isn't right.

See you in a couple weeks at Tech Day!

--G

 

[Barabus]

Lucky me- I get a whole new main wiring harness. Total time- two weeks repair. I just hope I-90 Motorsports does not **** it up.

Gee.... Unplug the old, plug in the new... what could possibly go wrong?

Hal,

Why is it that the bike dealer don't have talent like, say, a Lexus dealer? The labor rate is about the same. Don't understand why the dealers fail to advertise highly trained and tenured techs. The car dealers have figured out that service is where the money is. I bet if there were uniformity of highly trained techs at dealers that only of fraction of the owners on this board would still do all the services.

Barry

Lucky me- I get a whole new main wiring harness. Total time- two weeks repair. I just hope I-90 Motorsports does not **** it up.

Too bad about the harness Barry, but no worries. Between Auburn and ahchiu, we've got the electrical knowledge to fix anything that isn't right.

See you in a couple weeks at Tech Day!

--G

Glad you guys have my back. Hope this is not a Humpty Dumpty story. Kind of feelin' like I got the Don Carver bike curse.

Barry

 

[Fairlaner]

Barry time for a new one....... :clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

R

 

[Fred W]

Why is it that the bike dealer don't have talent like, say, a Lexus dealer? The labor rate is about the same. Don't understand why the dealers fail to advertise highly trained and tenured techs.

They figure that... the motorcycle riding public (yeah, that's us) is less astute or less demanding than the Lexus (aka way overpriced Toyota) driving public is.

Your opinion may vary.

Mine does.

 

[ionbeam]

...Why is it that the bike dealer don't have talent like, say, a Lexus dealer? The labor rate is about the same. Don't understand why the dealers fail to advertise highly trained and tenured techs...

A few years back I was in need of a high quality dealer to do significant engine work. I went to every dealer in the area, starting with the dealers that did advertise all the qualifications and certifications that their mechanics had achieved. I interviewed the service managers and mechanics just as if I was hiring them (which is in fact what I was doing). Let me tell ya, there is more to Service than a certificate. I talked with some real jerks and atholes that I didn't want to deal with, or let them mess with my machine. In the end I found a dealer that had a good street reputation and the interview with both the service manager and mechanic went real good. Plus, they had done the exact work that I needed many times before. You have to do your homework; it was really disappointing to see the gap between the advertised certifications and the true nature of the mechanics I would be dealing with.

 

[Barabus]

...Why is it that the bike dealer don't have talent like, say, a Lexus dealer? The labor rate is about the same. Don't understand why the dealers fail to advertise highly trained and tenured techs...

A few years back I was in need of a high quality dealer to do significant engine work. I went to every dealer in the area, starting with the dealers that did advertise all the qualifications and certifications that their mechanics had achieved. I interviewed the service managers and mechanics just as if I was hiring them (which is in fact what I was doing). Let me tell ya, there is more to Service than a certificate. I talked with some real jerks and atholes that I didn't want to deal with, or let them mess with my machine. In the end I found a dealer that had a good street reputation and the interview with both the service manager and mechanic went real good. Plus, they had done the exact work that I needed many times before. You have to do your homework; it was really disappointing to see the gap between the advertised certifications and the true nature of the mechanics I would be dealing with.

I did none of this. Too much time pressure. Probably end up screwed and tattooed. However, I appreciate the methodology that I should have used- very wise.

 

[dcarver]

Barry, keep us posted, k? FWIW, when my spider bit, they only had to replace the front sub harness, not the entire loom.

Although, given the ****** wiring size for the charging circuit, perhaps changing it out now is a good idea.

The real problem, the way I see it, is that to change the loom and reinstall correctly, 1/2 the bike comes apart.

My local tech actually asked if it was OK if he didn't follow the factory routing as long as it was clean. That worked very well, and in fact saved my bacon once.

Good luck B!

 

[Harald]

Lucky me- I get a whole new main wiring harness. Total time- two weeks repair. I just hope I-90 Motorsports does not **** it up.

Sounds like they found a smoked spider (or possibly more than one)? Did the dealer give you any details other than that it needs a new harness? Be sure to report your failure at www.safercar.gov if the failure was any spider other than the one under the tank on the left side. This will help drive a revised recall if it turns out that there's still spider failures happening after the current recall.

Hopefully they have successfull surgery on your scoot. I also have lots of aftermarket wiring on my bike and dread having the dealer do any work around it.

 

[Barabus]

Got the bike back. I-90 Motorsports did a great job. I am happy. Got a new harness, sub harness, and ignition recall. Bike is good to go. Happy to have this behind me. Btw the audiovox cruise control was the "canary in the coal mine" since it went offline earlier than anything else and now is back online. I know several peeps are having trouble with their cruise controls and this could be an earlier indicator of ground spider problem.