[ST] YIKES!

[pattib@xxxxxxxxxx]

Yesterday morning I picked up my ST at CalBMW after its 6K service.
They reported that they found no problems with the bike, and everything
was happy.

I live in San Francisco, which is about 40 miles away from the shop.
I'm heading north on 101, doing about 80-90 in the fast lane in
moderately heavy traffic, and enjoying the hell out of the fact that
I'm not riding the F650 loaner anymore.  Suddenly, just south of the SF
Airport the bike loses power and then stalls.

Somehow I manage to get across four lanes of fast-moving traffic
without mishap, and wind up on the shoulder just before the Peninsula
Avenue offramp.  The bike cranks but won't start.  The fuel gauge
reports that there's some gas in the tank, although it's close to the
point where the reserve light would come on, and I've done about 135
miles on the tank.  I finally get it to start, let it idle for a few
seconds, and when I roll on the throttle very gently it stalls again.

I check the tank, and can't see any gas though I can hear sloshing when
I shake the bike.  I try to start it again, and notice something odd:
the fuel gauge and engine temperature gauge have dropped to zero.  I
puzzle this for about ten seconds, and then they suddenly go back up to
where they belong.  When they do, I try starting the bike and it runs.

It seems to want to stay running, so I decide to take the exit and find
a gas station.  There's one about a quarter mile away, I gas up, and
when I try to start the bike, no dice.  The gauges are flatlined, and I
also notice that the engine and low fuel lights are lit, but very very
dimly, not brightly like they normally are at this point.  When the
gauges pick up again, I start the bike and pull it into a parking space
then call the shop.  They send a towtruck, and agree that if it's
something they've caused they'll cover it, but if it's unrelated it's
my charge.  While I wait, I try to start it a few times and notice that
it will start reliably if the fuel and temp gauges are giving a
reading, but not if they're dead.

A little while later, I'm back at the shop with the bike.  They say it
will be about an hour before they can look at it, so I take off on one
of their Legend loaners (no F650, yay!) and go kicking around.  When I
get back, they say that the tech took it for a standard three-mile test
ride and it worked fine.  Weird.  I'm not too convinced I want to take
this bike back on the freeway, so after hashing it over with them for a
while, we agree that I'll spend some time riding it around the surface
streets near the shop to see if I can reproduce the problem, because I
think I can limp it back to the shop if it dies again.

Off I go, and all of three blocks later, it stalls.  Same symptoms,
including the two gauges flatlining.  Back to the shop.  The tech looks
at it again, and happens to stick his hand over the exhaust as he's
revving the engine, and notices it feels wrong.  In particular, when he
rolls off the throttle, it wants to suck his hand back toward the pipe.
He disconnects some vent line (mechanically semi-literate me comes
through here) and goes for another ride.  It doesn't stall, but when he
comes back he notices that there's a pressure line that's badly
cracked, which could cause the symptoms of behaving like it's fuel
starved.  I'm not too happy with this, since it doesn't explain the
weird gauge behavior, but I don't know what else to do.  We schedule a
service appointment for April 20 to replace the hose, and in the
meantime he's trimmed a hair off of it which moves the worst crack back
to where it shouldn't be an issue.

I'm NOT happy about this, but I decide to see how it rides.  Off I go,
and two blocks later it stalls again.  I call the shop.  "I'm not
buying it, Dave.  It doesn't jibe."  Turn around in a parking lot and
it stalls again just as I cross the street.  Back to the shop.  It's
now 3:30, closing time, and they send me off on a Legend with their
apologies.


My poor Sprint!

Has anyone seen anything like this behavior before?  It feels to me
like a wiring problem, although I suppose it could also be a computer
issue.  They said that they hadn't downloaded a tune while they had it.

- -Patti

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