| Author | Message | ||
     Werewulf |
i had a doctor appointment in asheville nc and decided this would be a good time to do an "iron butt" of 1000 miles plus... so, i left home in florida at dawn on my 08 scg and was in aheville by early afternoon...i even had time to do the curvy roads in highlands on the way up hwy 441... as i was leaving the doctors office, i saw some serious thunder clouds (weatherman says 30%, so im not worried}.. then it let loose, rain coming down sideways... thinking that i can make it to franklin and have dinner, i kept going.. i could hardly see the lines in the road and lightining everywhere.. ok, i ride in rain and not a biggie.. as many bikes that ive had, ive never had a bike give me problems in the rain, until now.. about 20 miles into this deluge, the bike starts to cough about every 10 seconds.. then it starts to act like it doesnt want to take the gas...it did this for 80 miles of rain... i have to go over a big mountain to get to franklin and it starts coughing more often.. no place to pull over for shelter, just mountain road and trucks...finally i maade it to franklin and literally had to pour the water out of my boots... i cant believe that a bike with only 5k miles is giving me problems.. so after a quick dinner, i ride on, thinking that i will soon get out of the storm... 40 miles later, it starts to let up... now im wet, cold and POed st the bike... so i abandoned the idea of the thousand mile round trip and pulled into a motel... i didnt have a warm jacket, as i didnt plan on spending the night... in the morning, it was damn cold and the bike started ok... as soon as i would try to take off, it would stall...finally it would go if i reved the motor and really slipped the clutch... it ran so-so, until i reached middle georgia and the temperature increased.... so i only made it 640 miles the first day and the corbin seat was a killer... i wonder where the water is getting into the bike to mess it up like this...im scared to ride in the rain now..ive ridden in pouring rain on my tubers and never had a problem.. | ||
| Ftd |
Had the exact same issue when poured on riding to Myrtle Beach last year. '06 Uly. Fix is supposed to be replacing wires with Magnecors, dielectric gease and making sure no rubbing is happening from the idle cable or other sources. I haven't done this yet so I can't comment on its effectiveness. I wish these bikes were more sorted out as this is unacceptable (IMO). Frank | ||
| Toona |
How 'bout the water getting in the nice little screened "vent" right behind the gas cap??? If it was "raining sideways" I can't imagine it not going in there. | ||
| Punkid8888 |
Yea but that screen only lets you into the area between the inner and outer airbox, from there it has to go through all the slots to get into the inner air box, and after that it will have to go through the air filter. I think their is also a small drain hole in the back of the airbox. I would look at what FTD is talking about. I know the wires get real close to the frame, and maybe they have rubbed through some insulation. then once wet get start jumping over to the frame instead of through your spark plug gap. | ||
| Treadmarks |
Get the magnecores. Your wires are probably slightly chaffed from contact with the frame and when they get damp it will start missing. Alot of water from the front wheel makes it's way to the spark plug wire area. Like Ftd said, address the wires, grease and make sure the wires don't make contact with anything except the engine. If you're still running the stock airbox set up then I doubt that any water is making it to the air filter itself. I ride in heavy downpours on a regular basis in south florida and even with an open air box and ram air my k&n filter only gets a little wet, not enough to make it stall....yet. | ||
| Cringblast |
Pic of front plug wire rubbed by wiring harness from the intake area.  | ||
| Rpm4x4 |
I ride my buell everyday. If it rains I still ride. I am pleased to say that this has never happened to me. Im not bragging, just posting this so you know that not all XBs are doing this. When I changed my plugs I did put dielectric grease around the boots as I do with all my vehicles. | ||
| Nautique4life |
I got stuck in a pretty severe downpour last BikeWeek. It was bad. My bike started doing the same thing. Coughing and choking. I credited the water to this, somehow. To this day, I am still unsure EXACTLY what happened, but 2 sets of spark plugs later I am running hard again. The first set I replaced the old ones with fouled after ~45 minutes, the second set got me home. I pulled those and they were BLACK. Very frustrating to say the least. But the rain certainly affected my bike that day. I still ride in the rain when I have to, but not if it cats and dogs. | ||
| Vdubfro |
My 03 xb9s Did that to me on a ride to Columbus one time. Pouring rain, bike breaking up. Soon as the rain let up some it straightened out. When I took it in for service I told them about it. They replaced the plug wires. Never had another issue. The bike had less than 3,000 miles on it. I've road in horrible rain since and she never even coughed once. |
