• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

This ride brought weird bike behavior...advice please

EricV

EricV

Husqvarna
AA Class
Hi all. Took an after work ride for a few hours and had a couple of strange occurrences (which I don't think are related)- hoping the good folks of cafe husky have some insights for me. Mine's a TE630 with 1800 miles on it- p/u kit and no other mods at this point. Pretty high heat ride, temp around low 80's and had been hitting lots of stop and go coming back across town.

First what happened is this... I was tooling along (in a parking lot at this point) and clicked a downshift and the engine just cut off. No weirdness like a kerplunk or anything - had the clutch in from the downshift so just sudden silence. Not sure if I was going from 2nd to 1st or 3rd to 2nd- I think the former, which made me think perhaps something to do w/ the neutral switch. Any ideas what I should do to attack this- or just wait too see if it replicates? Could be a fluke, I guess. Rode another 1.5 hours w/out replication. No blinking green light indicating thrown code (now or all eve...which may be relevant below.)

Then, like an hour later, I stopped for a brief break. Upon switching the key on I heard the fuel pump pressurize as normal, and after it cycled it was making a subtle yet pronounced ticking...kind of a clicking ( hard to describe but that's about as close as I can describe it.) Not perfectly rhythmic, but steady clicking. Now at this point, the first time, I wasn't sure what it was, started it up, and drove on....didn't think much of it at the time. Bike ran perfectly fine. Hooliganed about for a while and stopped for a bite. Cycled the pump (sans helmet, ear to left radiator) and yeah, right after the pump cycled I'd hear this clicking noise. Fargin' strange. Ate, came out, bike cooler and no noise.

Throughout the evening the thing has been running great, but I'm heebed out that the pump may be hitting the shitter. Any suggestions on how to attack this...or just wait to see what happens? I've cycled it a few times since and cannot replicate it...hate intermittent issues.

Huge thanks gang- I truly appreciate this great forum. Thanks in advance for responses also- about to step out for the evening so will check in late or perhaps tomorrow.
 
johngil said:
Battery is good?
Click to expand...

Sure is, as far as I can tell (always starts readily...never given me any reason to think it's not.) Bought the bike new last July...so it's about 9 months old w/ 1800 miles on it. Thanks for replying.
 
I would pop the seat and check battery connections and all engine/frame grounds also. The cut off problem could be a loose connection. Not sure about the fuel pump ticking though. You have only 3 months left on your warranty so don't wait too long. Not sure but if you go in for a problem now under warranty and they cannot pinpoint it or fix it and later you have the problem again but then out of warranty I think you're grandfathered under warranty as problem already documented by dealer. The fuel pump is a very expensive part ~$500.

_
 
What type of fuel did you store the bike with over the winter? ethanol or non-ethanol, fuel stabilizer?

Is this the first ride of the year for you?
 
Thanks guys. Silverbullet: I'll be sure to check those connections when the weather clears up, but not feeling encouraged as all else seems fine (all electricals, starts readily, etc.) Still, it's smart to check/ rule out. It seems to me it has to do with some kind of switch at the shifter- it died out right on the downshift. What concerns me most is the fuel pump racket, though again I wasn't able to replicate it after those instances. Good points on warranty- I have been thinking about that. The thing is, the dealer I bought from is 3.5 hous away, and the only one closer is 2 hours away. I don't mind chucking a few hundred to err on the side of caution ( as it sure can't hurt to have a spare fuel pump) but 500 is a bit much for a speculative thing (I know it's the pump, but it doesn't necessarily follow that the actual pump is faulty as another factor, I guess, could impact it's performance/behavior...dunno.)

Fast1: The bike has been run routinely. It has sat for a few weeks here and there, but not long as we've had a very mild winter here in VA. I've run many tanks through it.

Thanks again folks...if anyone else has ideas please chime in.
 
I know it sounds dumb, but I've had my bike cut off out of no where. I realized my big hands can push the kill button not all the way, but enough to kill the bike. You my no realized you did it, but it happens. Not sure about the ticking.
 
Thanks Lunger. I don't think that's it, but you can never say never either, so no harm throwing that out there. I wanted to take a good long woods ride this weekend, but think I'll pass and just cruise some local back roads tomorrow to see what happens and develop some confidence it won't repeat. I'll also be following up on SilverBullet's suggestions just to rule out. Hate weird things that diminish ones confidence in the reliability of a bike. :( It's one thing to know what's up, but another when it's a potential intermittent gremlin.
 
Eric,what part of VA? I'm in Haymarket.

My 630 would just cut off without warning until I put the power commander and autotune on it, but weird noises from the fuel pump might need to be looked into.
 
Since you are open to suggestion, I'll throw some thoughts into it: This post has more to do with confidence than diagnosis since mostly its just weird occurrences that have happened.... partial to you being sensitive to your bikes behavior.

after the pump is done priming- then you heard a clicking, ticking? and it did it twice and then stopped (doesn't do this all the time)... After- its done priming the fuel pump is done, it is not turning or receiving power until you start the bike then it runs continuously or you cycle the ignition with the red button again- or hit the kick starter (if yours has one/ I don't know about 610/630s). So given that.... wouldn't it lead you to somewhat believe it has more to do with what the pump did rather than what the pump is doing. Meaning- its not related to the pump. but the pressure changes? you pressurized everything after the pump- maybe a hose is creeping/moving- (loose) Maybe leaking, or the tank created a vacuum due to the loss of volume and you have a one way valve (on the tank cap) that is releasing- just guesses but an attempt to explain an anomaly:D

As far as the one time stall after shifting gears- maybe the bike is tuned slightly poorly and you put it in a disadvantageous gear. Maybe the first sign of a bad temp sensor, really really hard to say at this point. Hooking up to Ibeat- you can verify the temp sensor, tps, gear selector.....

9/10 you don't have anything to worry about- keep logging miles, do your maintenance, and when a problem arises it will be more obvious and hard to prevent. Hopefully not anytime soon:thumbsup:
 
Rob- I'm south of you in C'ville...small husky world after all. Good to know I'm not the only one who has experienced this, and I've gotta admit I've been itching to get the JD tuner.

HuskynXJnWI- I hear ya...thanks for giving it thought and some good ideas. Absolutely it's about confidence (only insofar as coming to expect only it's usual predictable ways, less the obviously aberrant quirks I'd experienced), as well as early diagnosis for reliability or being prepared (and you're right I am sensitive to the bike's sound, feel, feedback...as a matter of reliability/safety.) I've been riding 35 years and on the one hand certainly expect the quirks we all get thrown and on the other get accustomed to that predictability, the baseline. I agree with the thinking on it being more about what the pump has done and I've given it thought (as that's all I can do, for now, until it replicates) and the thing is, it was a distinctive almost mechanical clicking. Shoot, now that I type this it's pitch was such that I'd say it leaned towards sounding like a relay type clicking. Just that distinctive and, besides, it was so clearly new/odd (first time I heard it I had my helmet on)- definitely new and clear. By the way...just to be clear it did it twice that night, in a row (w/ a short ride in between), and after it cooled no more noise but I parked it (had turned it on twice more to see if it would happen, but it didn't and it continued to sit, where it has for a week, so tomorrow I'll find out what happens when I get it out for a good run.) Other than those two times my pump has always cycled very clearly/normally for a few secs then goes silent- the usual predictable behavior. BTW- no one way valve...just the vent hose routed down the headtube, as it's always been. Anyway, your thinking bears relevance and I may get a chance to put an ear closer next time and pinpoint it better. As for the downshift... You're right it can happen that way but this was a low speed relaxed downshift in a lot. Again a very predictable scenario and whoosh- engine just died as I had the clutch in/shifted...so tonight or tomorrow I'll look in the manual to see what kind of switches/connections I may want to clean up/inspect. Bikes been running great...strong, good starts, etc. ibeat would be handy for this kind of stuff, just haven't wanted to spring the cabbage for it, or go 5 hrs. round trip unless I had more of an obvious, clear and/or significant issue at hand...figured I'd spring for the JD first. In the end I'd been planning on what you recommended in closing- just hop on tomorrow and see what it brings...hope nothing as I've been dying to go out- last weekend was raining...I'm itching to get on it.

Thanks again. Trust I'm not perseverating- just wanted to throw it out in case someone had crossed one of these bridges on the bike and had insight. Good ideas - I'll follow up w/ them. So that, and being of the mind that you gotta try and pin something down quick (as a matter of reliability and thwarting possibly greater costs or damage later) thought I'd throw it out. I'll let you know how it behaves tomorrow or what I may learn. For now being optimistic as I'm psyched to get out and play on it!
 
The least I can do is provide you guys an update. Short story is: issues did not replicate. Strange but I'll take it. On Saturday I took the bike out for about a 75 mile ride- mainly back roads (pavement and gravel) and some short off road jaunts (didn't go far off the beaten path as I was concerned something may go south.) May just be one of those flukes, and I'll let you know if anything else rears its head as it's always helpful for us to know of these types of things. Thanks again for all who provided advice!
 
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