Bike dies in 3rd gear around 8000 rpm...

[buschdogg]

Hi guys.

So last night on the Dan Ryan expressway, my bike dies completely... I manage to maneuver to the exit as it's dying and by the time it gets to 30 mph or so, I decide to try slipping back to neutral and hitting start.. BOOM works like a charm.  Earlier in the day when I put the bike into 1st it died... flicked the kickstand down and up again and everything was well... seems like an obvious kickstand / neutral sensor button problem, right?

Well.. the only time it cuts out is under heavy acceleration in 3rd gear.  It usually starts back up intermittently as the rpms fall (not always), but usually I'm still holding the gas, get a misfire... play around with the kickstand  and get it started again...

So.. I guess I'm wondering if there's anything that would cause this aside from the kickstand?  And if so.. why only 3rd gear?  (could be 4th and 5th, I haven't taken it up to 8k rpm in either since it's started doing this)  It doesn't do it at all in 1st or 2nd.

Thanks in advance,
Josh

[andyb]

My guess is either vibration causing something to short (electrical) or starving on the fuel.

If that's 88+, check the fuel filter.  If it has a pump, check that.  Electrical will take some fiddling to find, so hope for something easy!

[Pat Conlon]

Isolate the component and see if that's the cause of the problem.
From the kick stand switch, follow the wires up along the left side where the plug connector is located. Disconnect the plug and on the line side (that goes back to the ignition) take a small piece of wire with 2 spade connectors and jump the leads.

Go for a ride....If the problem goes away, you've found the culprit.

[buschdogg]

Isolate the component and see if that's the cause of the problem.
From the kick stand switch, follow the wires up along the left side where the plug connector is located. Disconnect the plug and on the line side (that goes back to the ignition) take a small piece of wire with 2 spade connectors and jump the leads.

Go for a ride....If the problem goes away, you've found the culprit.

Thanks.  For the record, it's an '85 (might be an 84, actually.. I can't remember.. one or the other..) with ~29k on it.  I'll go ahead and try this out this weekend and see what happens.

-Josh

[buschdogg]

I took the fairing off and checked all the wires and such this weekend... put it all back and I really don't think whatever is causing this has to do with the neutral switch after all, because that switch seems to register with a click on the relay near the battery when triggered and doesn't seem to trigger except when it is supposed to. 

Does anyone have any ideas?  1st/2nd gear I can go all the way to redline with no issue.. 3rd pulls hard all the way to ~8k and just cuts out.. sometimes coming back on, sometimes not... what gives?

[Pat Conlon]

Not your neutral switch...... Isolate your side stand switch and see if that helps.

[buschdogg]

For any and all interested parties, it WAS the kickstand switch.  I took it to the shop and they checked the voltages when it was idling and noticed that they were flipping out (took them a while because at first they didn't think there was a real problem, lol.) after I insisted long enough.  End result - bypassed the kickstand switch and I'm good to go.  Luckily, I've had bikes that didn't have a kickstand switch on them before, so I've learned to always put that kickstand up regardless. Back to the road I come!   

[FJmonkey]

Thanks for sharing the end result, lessons learned that may help other FJ owners. Always good to get your Kookaloo back.

[fj11.5]

well done, a few winners on that if we were bidding    ,, my 84 dousnt have that switch but the 89 does  , makes a great kill switch, look ma no hands