So I was out riding today after being gone six weeks and not having a chance to ride the bike. After a couple hours I start heading home. I'm on city streets when all of the sudden while in 3rd gear I can hear the bike turn off, it's as if I hit the kill switch. I coast for a bit, pull over check to make sure I have gas, oil is good, and my air filter hasn't become clogged since the bike was sitting over a month.

I try to start the bike and it doesn't want to turn on, I have some power because gauge lights are on. After two minutes the bike starts up, and off I go. After a minute the bike dies, this happens continually until I get home, luckily I was less than a mile from home. The worse part was dropping from 45mph to 10mph with a car about to slam into me before I pulled the clutch so I could coast to the curb. The bike did not want to start up after this latest shut down, I haven't gone down to see if it starts yet.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

The bike is 1996 Hugger 883.

 

Is there any other info I could give out that may help you give a guess?

 

who did the internal wiring for your bars? it almost sounds like you have a wiring problem that when it gets hot it seperates or grounds the kill switch circuit.

 

Hmmm maybe you are on to something. I spent the day doing tight turns, and u-turns, it's possible something got lose.

 

Also - check the "pinch clamp" connectors on your coil leads - though, if you recently touched the handlebar wiring, I'd strongly suggest spending some time looking at the last thing you touched.

 

Possibly a heat induced ignition module problem? I think some years are susceptible to ignition module failure.

John

 

I ran into a similar problem when I moved back from Germany late last year. My bike would suddenly die losing all electrical to the gauges and engine while riding. Turned out to be a very simple fix just needed to replace the battery.