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usnen2
08-18-2009, 09:29 PM
Riding to the Iowa State Fair today and looking forward to a nice day of riding and bumming around the fair. 30 miles from Des Moines on I-80 when the ignition totally cut out and the bike died. Was horrified to discover that I had left my toolkit at home and didn't have so much as a pocket knife on me. Checked all the fuses and they looked good. Ended up hiking 6 miles to town and calling my wife for a rescue.

Where is the first place I should look for the failed ignition? bike cranks, battery seems good. Tach was doing some weird stuff right after the failure but not now. There was no warning on this - went from running great to completely dead.


As an aside, I was very dissapointed that out of the 20 or so bikes that passed me broke down on the side of the interstate (including 4 BMWs) not one stopped to offer assistance. Am I the only person that stops to help fellow bikers anymore?

1aretea
08-19-2009, 06:00 AM
Check the ignition wire harness, just under the handle bar mounts and between the fork tubes. This happened to my R1150RT-04, when I turned left or right the motor cut out and would restart when handle bar was strait. Had the dealer replace the ignition wire harness, now I'm happy!

flars
08-19-2009, 06:55 AM
"...Tach was doing some weird stuff right after the failure but not now. ..."
What bike are you on? Classic symptom of HES failure if this is an 1100.
The other possibility, as noted above, is a broken ignition wire due to a wire tie being too tight, but that is less likely on an 1100.
If it is the HES, it is a simple, do-it-yourself fix.

usnen2
08-19-2009, 08:33 AM
whoops forgot to put that in my post-

2000 R1100R

What is an HES?

PETDOC
08-19-2009, 08:47 AM
Go here for HES (Hall Effect Sensor)
http://www.bmwmoa.org/forum/showthread.php?t=38743

usnen2
08-19-2009, 09:13 PM
Where on the bike is the HES located?

flars
08-19-2009, 09:58 PM
The HES resides under the alternator belt cover, and to get to it you remove the alt belt and lower pulley.

usnen2
08-24-2009, 11:42 PM
So I started work on this tonight. Removed the pulley cover and started taking the tank trim off. Just for the heck of it I hit the starter and she fired right up. Wth?? I almost wish it wouldn't have, now it runs so I don't want to dump a bunch of parts on it but on the other hand I don't trust it not to strand me again.


I just briefly touched the wiring on the HES taking the cover off, do I just have a bad wire? I think I've seen other posts on this.