Stopped by the dealer to pick up a couple of parts and decided to take a little longer route out to the interstate. About 2 miles from the on ramp, traffic stopped and it was stop and creep from then on. Got about a quarter mile from the highway and the bike started running on one cylinder. I thought, "must be running hot and probably boiled the fuel in the carb" (vapor lock), so I pulled over to let it cool off for about 10 min. Started it back up and still on one cyl. with the other cutting in intermittently.
By now, it's starting to get dark and I was still about 10 miles from home. I cut down a side street and brought it up to about 50 to try to cool it down a little. Still sounding like a Briggs and Straton missing and farting down the road. Got to the next light (red of course) and sat there at about 2 grand trying to keep it running. Light turns green... clutch goes out... dies. Push it to the side and figure I'd better decide what is really the problem. Pull the rear spark plug wire and try to start. No go. Ah Ha, must be the front cyl. Pull the spark plug wire off the plug and the wire comes off in my hand. Turns out the wire end had come out of the coil for some unknown reason. Stuck it back in (burning my hand in the process), the bike fired right up and ran fine! Just goes to show, check the simple things first!

 

Thought for sure this was going to be another "deer in the handlebars" thread. Good deal.

 

Occam's Razor.

 

Same thing happened to me just by washing my bike. Fouled a plug.

 

I was thinking water in the gas. Like you said, check the simple things. Glad it was an easy fix!

 

Haha, these were my thoughts as I was reading this.

 

If the engine hadn't been running so good till that traffic mess, I would have checked the plug wires first. As it was, I was thinking totally out of the box as I just got fuel that day also. (thinking water). Your mind is a terrible thing to waste...

 

That's a pretty good one buddy! Always check the simple things like "did I turn the fuel on?" lol

 

Now that brings up another thing. I never have gotten into the habit of turning the fuel off. My bike doesn't have the vacuum auto off petcock as it started to leak and I replaced it with an "old style" standard type. My last bike had a Pingle on and I never did turn it off either. Never had a problem with the carb overflowing. I tried to program myself to do it, but more than once, ran out of gas just down the street for failing to turn it back on. Maybe one day I'll get with the program.

 

I lost the front cylinder on mine, only it was the exhaust valve guide pulling out of the head jamming the valve open. Had to happen going up a hill too.