SWFOG Rider assistance ?

[exskibum]

Just got off the phone with Sacramento Mike, who is in Ely, NV at ~2pm PDT. He called for assistance locating the idle adjust screw on his '05 (with roughly 47K miles). I assisted him with that, but it seems he may be having a problem for which that may only be a temporary and imperfect fix. It's mid afternoon in Ely, and the bike is hot.

Mike says that the bike is running ok at freeway speeds, but is very rough and stalling when he has gotten off the highway, and that he had trouble restarting it after refueling, with it quitting a couple times. Seems to me the idle speed adjustment is, at best, a stopgap measure, and not a solution to whatever ails his bike.

I haven't had this occur on my '05, so I was guessing when he asked what might be causing those symptoms. He says the bike has been maintained according to service manual specs by a known reputable dealer, so I'd assume a sufficiently clean air filter, reasonably fresh plugs, TBS close to in sync, recalls done, etc. As a wild ass guess, I suggested maybe a bad load of gas or a mixture problem (too rich?) at idle and low speeds. Beyond that, FI issues involving fuel rail, recirculation, fuel pump -- I just don't know enough even to guess.

I don't recall, and didn't ask if he was running OEM exhaust, a PCIII, or whether there was any issue with the O2 sensor.

ANYONE HAVE ANY OTHER IDEAS OR SIMILAR EXPERIENCE if he should call again from somewhere east of Ely in that hot assed desert??

 

[GalaxyBlue]

Mike called me also, And i tried to help. I pointed him in the direction of Beerme Brad as he's closer than anyone.

Good luck mike, And hope it's nothing serious.

 

[beemerdons]

Mike called me also, And i tried to help. I pointed him in the direction of Beerme Brad as he's closer than anyone.

Good luck mike, And hope it's nothing serious.

Adam and Rich, I just put in a call to SkooterG to check out this thread. Maybe GregM has some ideas to fix this!

 

[FJRay]

I would be looking at the caps on the throttle bodies or a vacum leak in a cruise control if he has one.

 

[RPrice]

Where is Mike headed after Ely? I'm 200 miles away, north of St. George, UT. Have tools, etc.. and garage, plenty of room, am on the FJR assistance list.

 

[exskibum]

I would be looking at the caps on the throttle bodies or a vacum leak in a cruise control if he has one.

Yeah -- that'd make sense. Thanks, Ray.

Where is Mike headed after Ely? I'm 200 miles away, north of St. George, UT. Have tools, etc.. and garage, am on the FJR assistance list.

I'm not sure what his route is. There was a lot of background noise, and he just said that he was headed to Taos. If I hear from him again and he's near your neck of the woods, I'll pull up the latest version of the FJR Assistance List and give him your number.

After being led to the idle adjuster**, he said he was going to try that, and that he'd let me know how it worked out, which led me to believe I'd probably hear from him if he had further problems. He hasn't called back, but after getting off the phone, it occurred to me that he may be out in BFE without cell service if the problem recurred before he got to a more populous region in Utah (which was where I assumed his route would take him).

** Imagine both of us crouched down by the right sides of our '05s, several hundred miles apart, cell phones in hand, as I had him put his finger on the top of the clutch housing cover and then run it forward (a couple inches) directly under the frame member to the point where he'd hit that adjuster with it. Of course, he was in the sun and heat with a hot engine, and I was in a dark, cool garage right next to the cat box. :lol:

 

[phroenips]

Where is Mike headed after Ely? I'm 200 miles away, north of St. George, UT. Have tools, etc.. and garage, am on the FJR assistance list.

I'm not sure what his route is.

According to this post, he was going to "play around in southern UT," and eventually make his way over to the Colorado front range and ride down to Taos with us on Tuesday.

 

[RPrice]

I would be looking at the caps on the throttle bodies or a vacum leak in a cruise control if he has one.

Yeah -- that'd make sense. Thanks, Ray.

Where is Mike headed after Ely? I'm 200 miles away, north of St. George, UT. Have tools, etc.. and garage, am on the FJR assistance list.

I'm not sure what his route is. There was a lot of background noise, and he just said that he was headed to Taos. After being led to the idle adjuster**, he said he was going to try that, and that he'd let me know how it worked out, which led me to believe I'd probably hear from him if he had further problems. He hasn't called back, but after getting off the phone, it occurred to me that he may be out in BFE without cell service if the problem recurred before he got to a more populous region in Utah (which was where I assumed his route would take him).

** Imagine both of us crouched down by the right sides of our '05s, several hundred miles apart, cell phones in hand, as I had him put his finger on the top of the clutch housing cover and then run it forward (a couple inches) directly under the frame member to the point where he'd hit that adjuster with it. Of course, he was in the sun and heat with a hot engine, and I was in a dark, cool garage right next to the cat box. :lol:

Yeah, I ride through Ely a lot, and there are indeed some cell service "black holes" in that part of the world, anyway, I'll keep monitoring this thread, and like I said, I can help if he happens to be coming this way (and he very well may be). My cell is 435.632.4834. Also, I used to live in Ely and know some folks around there that could help "rescue" Mike.

 

[exskibum]

Thanks, Bob. Just another reason to choose an FJR!

 

[Big-D]

Mike's description is how my '08 was running at altitude. With Ely being about 6500 ft in elevation, maybe he is suffering from altitude sickness. It was last year in Taos and this past March in Death Valley, once we climbed up above 6500-7000 feet, my bike started wanting to die at idle. It ran great once rolling and once we dropped in elevation it ran great also. The temperature however never changed, it stayed cool even when it wanted to quit at low RPM at altitude. I'll find out this week coming up if it's still a problem or not. Hopefully Mike is now back to running great.

After reading what Skooter wrote I think I'll run down and get four new throttle body rubber caps tomorrow and replace mine just in case that could have been my issue. I remember when I did my throttle bodies a couple of the caps were really hard to get off and I used a pair of needle nose. I may have torn a small hole or ripped one of them just enough to allow vacuum to escape.

 

[RPrice]

I'll check this in the AM, going to work at 0600 PDT. I can, not go to work, if Mike needs help. Hope everything is OK.

 

[exskibum]

Big D -- I don't think it's altitude sickness. He apparently didn't have the problem going through the Sierras, where all the passes he might have come through are higher than Ely. Moreover, his is a Gen I, which didn't suffer from what became known as altitude sickness -- an issue in the earlier Gen II ECMs.

I'm with you about my needing to purchase extra vacuum caps, too. (Well, and extra fasteners, etc.) I haven't heard from Mike since, so he's either starving, dehydrated and wandering the Utah-Nevada desert, or he's managed to get where he needed to go. Maybe it was just a load of bad gas?

At least he knows where the idle adjust knob is now.

 

[Bugnatr]

My 04 would do that with the 85 octane you get in eastern NV and Utah but it seems his started to act up before he was able to get the 85 regular. A load of 91 cleared up that problem.

Bad gas would do that too. Keep us posted Rich.

 

[CAJW]

What is it with Ely? Same place I had my intermittent clutch switch take a dump on me not allowing a start in gear a couple of years ago. I'm with others in that a vacuum leak or bad gas is probably the culprit. Couldn't hurt to try a bottle of injector cleaner if things don't clear up with a fill up of fresh go juice. Good luck SM.

 

[beemerdons]

What is it with Ely? Same place I had my intermittent clutch switch take a dump on me not allowing a start in gear a couple of years ago. I'm with others in that a vacuum leak or bad gas is probably the culprit. Couldn't hurt to try a bottle of injector cleaner if things don't clear up with a fill up of fresh go juice. Good luck SM.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it is just bad gas, so that SacramentoMike can still make SW-FOG 2011. Knowing SacMike very well, "bad gas" is highly likely!

 

[SacramentoMike]

this is done with a Kindle in a motel room in Moab. Bike is still hesitating and missing at low rpms but fine, more or less, on the road. I would take it in but for the weekend. Ive decided to push on with my plans, meet to Colorado guys and make Taos if poss. Theres an electrical component too. Found out yesterday the horn doesnt work!??? Anyway I will let you know how this resolves and thanks to Rich, Adam and all who have replied. Except Beemerdons of course. :lol:

 

[Fred W]

Mike,

Do you have a PCIII on the bike? If so, try removing it (by unplugging the two connectors that go to the fuel injection) and returning to normal stock configuration. The two connectors from the bike plug into each other normally. Just leave the two PCIII connectors hanging.

If you have no PCIII, it could also be a bad O2 sensor. Try just unplugging the O2 sensor and run the bike "open loop" mode and see if the idle and low speed performance improves.

edit - Just read the part about the horn. That doesn't make sense. Back to the drawing board.

edit edit - OK, just looked at the wiring diagrams for the '05. A couple of questions will get us closer:

Does your instrument back lights still illuminate? How about the glove box solenoid? The fuse for the horns also feeds the back-lights in the instrument cluster and the glove box solenoid and relay.

Does the windshield raise and lower normally? It appears that the windshield drive switch share a ground with the horn switch in the left switch pod (makes sense).

Still, none of this makes sense for a drive-ability problem, unless the two problems are coincidental.

 

[beemerdons]

Wowser SacMike, glad to see that you checked in with us and that you are still motoring towards Toas, Nuevo Mexico for SW-FOG 2011. There was a persistent rumor floating around the American Southwest that you had been captured by Indian Maidens of the Uintah / Ouray Tribes and taken to the Reservation north of Green River.

Story was that the Squaws were forcing you to service all of them! But of course, not the Braves. (Well, Old Michael did say that there might have been a Brave or two!)

 

[madmike2]

<edit>

IIRC, Duff or Silverbullet had a similar problem at NAFO in Golden. I think it ended up being a plugged injector or loose injector connector.