| Author | Message | ||
     Hughlysses |
So, as I expounded in another thread, I installed new 2010 turn signals on my 2007 Uly and installed a new rear tire over the past couple of days. Today I took it out for a test ride. Bike fires up and runs normally, I head out and get a couple of miles out of town, less than 5 minutes total run time, when it starts cutting out. As I watch I can see the following things happen when holding steady throttle- my voltage sensor LED, which is green at normal voltage, will go out, indicating no power. The check engine light illuminates. The tach and speedo go to 0, and the engine loses all power. Almost immediately, the gauges sweep, the voltage indicator LED goes through its sequence (flashing red, yellow, then green, then solid green), indicating restoration of power. The engine picks up power again, and runs OK for a few seconds, when this happens again, over and over. It's just as if I were to turn the key off, wait a second, and then turn it back on, again and again. I quickly turned around and the bike died when idling. I switched it off and back on, it fired up normally, I accelerated up through about 3rd gear when the process began repeating. At low speed, it was nearly unrideable as it was "pogo-ing" down the street. I nursed it back to the garage. So my first thought was I must have disturbed some wire behind the cowl when I was installing the new turn signals, so I checked those over pretty throughly and didn't find any obvious issues. I took the seat off and went over all the exposed wiring back there and didn't find anything obvious. ECM is OK (it's no bolted down and is lying out of the way so the seat doesn't rest on it). I cranked the bike up and it idled normally for a little over 30 seconds when the voltage LED went out, the check engine light came on, and the engine died. I re-cranked it repeatedly and this happens every time- it'll run 30 to 40 seconds, the voltage LED goes out, the check engine light comes on, and it dies. I tried wiggling wires while it is running and turning the handlebars back and forth and it had no effect. I put a volt meter on the battery- it showed ~12.8 volts with the bike shut off and about 14 volts with the bike running. I watched the volt meter until the bike died at ~30 seconds and there was no change until the engine quit. I'm baffled. It seems like that regular loss/regain of power must be something to do with the ECM or a sensor. Could it be a bad bank angle sensor switch? | ||
| Teeps |
Loose ground cable or ground at steering head Cracked PCB in the ECM I think you can turn the BAS off with ECM Spy. | ||
| Hughlysses |
After further thought, I think the BAS can be ruled out. A BAS trip requires the ignition switch to be cycled before bike will restart. That's not the case here. I also can't see it being a bad ground as it wouldn't be consistently, weirdly intermittent like this. I will inspect further though. I just went out and re-cranked the bike (it had cooled down). It ran fine for about 5 minutes, then died. Problem is now same as before; it'll run for ~30 seconds, then die. Whatever it is, it seems to be related to something getting warm or the engine being warmed up. I thought maybe it was related to the cooling fan starting up. I have the updated fan logic; at idle, the fan will come on at low speed when the engine gets up to temp. Once the engine got warm, I noticed that the fan ran for at least a minute or so before the issue occurred, so the fan being an issue doesn't seem likely. I have an IDS race ECM for stock muffler installed; I'm gonna try swapping in the stock ECM and see what that does. And to add insult to injury, I noticed one of the steering head bearings squeaks (loudly!) when turning the bars lock to lock, so it looks like I need to replace those soon. (Message edited by Hughlysses on August 09, 2018) | ||
| Hughlysses |
Tried a little more troubleshooting: There's a key switch relay- it occurred to me maybe that's going bad since the issues feels exactly like you're switching the key on and off. I swapped the "auxiliary" and "key switch" relays. Crank it up, let it idle a long time, it seems fixed. Get on and go for a test ride, ~2 minutes down the road the problem comes back. Limp back home, get out the old stock ECM and swap that in. Fire bike up, let idle a long time, go for test ride, ~2 minutes down the road, bike sputters and dies and is reluctant to re-crank. Dies once more but I finally nurse it home. I guess this old girl is determined to punish me for giving all my attention to the EBR, even after I lavished attention on her this week AND ordered a bunch of stuff from Lance yesterday!  | ||
| Etennuly |
Try swapping battery from one of your other bikes. I had one with a bad or loose plate that did similar things. | ||
| Smorris |
i'm going to vote for fuel pump wires chaffing or the wire bundles at steering neck- either the ground group or the red wire group.battery switch out is good 1st step | ||
| Etennuly |
57 plug behind front pulley cover did similar things. Fixed one with a voltage regulator wire shorted to ground under engine, above muffler. | ||
| Tootal |
There's a demon in your garage and it has attacked the Uly yet only started on the EBR. Keep the EBR away from the Uly or it too will become completely possessed! | ||
| Steveford |
If you've done all of the above with no success see how snug your fuses are in the fuse holder. I lost my lights after a fuse somehow become loose in the connectors. Unlikely but you may have something similar going on. | ||
| Hughlysses |
There's a demon in your garage and it has attacked the Uly yet only started on the EBR. Keep the EBR away from the Uly or it too will become completely possessed! No joke. The EBR demon seems to have been exorcised since I got back from NC. Maybe he just moved over to the Uly! | ||
| Sharkguy |
How is the key fitting into the ignition? Not a Buell story but my wife had an 88 Mustang years ago. You could be driving somewhere and the thing would just shut off. It seemed to happen especially when going into a sweeping right curve. It drove me crazy for weeks. I finally figured out the key was worn out and would work itself out of the ignition just enough to cut out. My wife had a bunch of keys on her car key that contributed to wearing out the key. I had a new key made and it solved the problem. I would check the ignition switch too. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Larry- Thanks for that suggestion. I actually just switched to a “new” key (an unused spare) about a week ago. Maybe I’ll try the old key to see if that makes any difference. The thing that seems to disprove many of these possibilities is the “regularity” of the issue. It only happens after the engine comes up to temperature and then it’s as if the ignition goes on and off repeatedly. If it happened occasionally and/or irregularly, a bad switch, bad battery, broken wire or wiring short would make sense. The thing about the voltage indicator- I have it wired to the backside of the dash accessory socket. That gets power from a relay. When the issue occurs, that relay is dropping out. The battery and charging system are maintaining output even when the issue occurs as I put a voltmeter across the battery terminals and watched it while the bike died. I’m going to try swapping some of the other relays and see if that has any effect. | ||
| Tootal |
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012TT5BI/ref=o h_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 | ||
| Sharkguy |
Hugh,just thought I'd throw it out there . It really does sound like a heat induced electrical problem. Probably a relay or connector issue somewhere. Nothing worse than electrical gremlins. | ||
| Griffmeister |
Or a bad coil? That’s like the only ignition related component that gets direct engine heat, isn’t it? | ||
| Hughlysses |
Bad coil has occurred to me, except I don’t know why loss of spark would cause the accessory relay to drop out, which results in loss of voltage at the voltage LED. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I think I fixed it. I swapped the "accessory" and "key switch" relays back to the original positions, and swapped the "start" and "ignition" relays. I cranked it and let it idle for ~10 minutes on the side stand, and then took it out to ride. I didn't trust it, so I made a short ~1 mile ride around town, then repeated that loop and had no issues, so I went out on my usual ~12 mile loop and rode "briskly". No issues, and it would still crank up after I shut it off. Looks like the ignition relay is the problem. Swapping that "bad" relay into the start position may be a semi-permanent fix, as the start relay only picks up when you press the starter switch. I guess I'll go ahead and order a spare or two- maybe a full set since the EBR uses the same relay set. Thanks for the suggestions. | ||
| Tootal |
I replaced all four relays on mine right before BITA. I had replaced one already and then another failed. Decided to just replace them all and be done for a while. Hence the link above. Great to hear you figured it out! What did you do to get the EBR exorcised? | ||
| Hughlysses |
What did you do to get the EBR exorcised? Nothing. I did the “crank it up, idle for 5 minutes, shut it off, wait 5 minutes, crank it up and ride” thing a couple of times after I got back home with no issues, then just “crank it up and ride” with no issues 3 times. Seems like it’s fixed. Tim at IDS sent me another ECM to try if needed (how nice was that?) but doesn’t look like I’m gonna need it. Of course, now that the Uly seems fixed, the gremlin may be back in the EBR.  I did go ahead and order 4 relays; I’ll save the 3 old good ones for spares. (Message edited by Hughlysses on August 12, 2018) | ||
| Sharkguy |
Awesome! Hopefully that cures the issue. Always takes awhile to build the trust for the machine back up. But I think you are free of that gremlin. | ||
| Sagehawk |
I have measured up to 145° f under the seat on longer , hot rides. Battery , fusebox , and ecm. Enough time, vibration , and heat would take its toll I would think. If I was putting a lot of mileage on, I would think about new relays and fuses on a yearly or 2 year change. Just the lot of them in the garbage and new ones into bike. Regular maintenance as it were. Hey Tootal! How the world these days? |
