More like: What did my bike to to me today?
To quote one of my 12yo son's favourite recent South Park sayings... "long story short"
The bike finally started, idled, restarted and restarted and restarted. WTF!
I can't take any credit for the result ... except perhaps I was just poking around and around and around.
Was following Burt's flow chart and ticking off confirmed items.
Thought I'd found it with a good fuse (fuel pump 7.5V) but no power behind it. This is still the case (with ignition on or off). Even told my long suffering wife. Can anyone explain?
Was confused with the position of the fuel injection relay (front RHS) and just went around with the multimeter measuring and recording. On the flow chart it asks "power from ignition to pin 86 of relay" ... well battery measured 12.30V, pin 86 read: 12.22V and pin 85 12.22V. Is pin 85 important? Why no question about this pin in the flow chart?
Centre front relay is horn of course. Too loud in a single car garage.
Power saver relay (front LHS) was reading: pin 85: 12.28V, pin 86: 11.86V. Others zero or very small voltage...eg 0.23V.
Wasn't sure how to check the ground from pin 7 of ECU to pin 85 of FI relay. I only got readings of incomplete circuit using multimeter. No joy here. Can someone elaborate?
Starter used to only last approx 3-5 secs before cutting out. Now the bike starts up almost immediately. I did pull the starter motor and clean the innards. Q: Should the starter stay on as long as the button is pressed?
Had gone over the relays and fuses with de-oxit. But that had given no joy.
Fuel pump was not on constantly when key turned ... bad connection... something up stream had to be the problem.
Disconnected the fuel hose (to injectors) and confirmed supply and then pulled the injectors and confirmed "squirting" (pointless given that they were serviced... but I couldn't leave this uncertain).
I was scratching my head and getting the shits with it... but couldn't bring myself to take it into the shop. I was so far down the path to despair that I had retrieved my mobile to phone a very mechanical friend of a friend. Bit more poking around and ...
...ignition!
Perhaps it was a bad connection under the tank and de-oxiting and pulling relays (and fuses) in and out repeatedly made the difference.
Apart from the Hall effect sensor, I had generally exhausted all else. Still, the bike's not registered for the road. Last time, I had phoned them to say I would be 5 minutes, got dressed and closed the garage before it cut out in the driveway and then this vortex of hell.
Got a result and got to be happy.
But somedays, can't help but scratch the head and wonder what the hell it was.
It will be 7 years... all going well.
Now there's a K1100LT under a tarp calling me like the sirens of ancient Greek legend ... and an unfinished vespa.
Will post a few other bits which might be useful elsewhere
Guy
PS. one upside to all this global warming is more days to ride motorbikes!