Sidestand causing bike to die?

[macbusa]

I think my kickstand is causing the bike to die. I have had the kickstand off, cleaned and checked the spring and sidestand switch. I was coming home from work today and hit a bump on the interstate and the bike died completely. If I reach down with my left foot and pull on on the side stand I can get the bike started again.

Bike has also died under hard acceleration with the same symptoms.

There seems to be a bit of play when the side stand is all the way up in contact with the switch...which maybe the problem...but I am not sure what to do to fix it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Gunnybusa]

How old is your bike? How many miles?

 

[omslaw]

There's two springs - one inside the other - that pull/hold the sidestand up. If one of them is broken/missing, that could be causing the stand to 'bounce'...

 

[macbusa]

Gunnybusa - bike is a 2004 with 16k miles

omslaw - I just double checked - both springs are there and appear to be in working order

Thanks

 

[Gunnybusa]

How about the wires leading to the plug / switch ? Maybe the switch its self has gone bad.

 

[dadofthree]

You could defeat the switch and put the bike through the paces and see what's watt.

 

[macbusa]

(dadofthree @ Jul. 23 2007,17:59) You could defeat the switch and put the bike through the paces and see what's watt.

How do you defeat/bypass the switch?

 

[Gunnybusa]

(macbusa @ Jul. 23 2007,18:08)

(dadofthree @ Jul. 23 2007,17:59) You could defeat the switch and put the bike through the paces and see what's watt.

How do you defeat/bypass  the switch?

yep

 

[macbusa]

How do you bypass the switch?

?

 

[SpeedAdict]

Well the easiest way is just take a couple zip ties and zip tie the switch down. The "cause you issues if you want the switch back way" is cut and strip the wires, then twist them togther and put a wire nut on it. I would try the zip tie way first and if all else fails just snip away. By the way are you sure you tigtened the kickstand nut all the way and you didn't forget any washers in there. Your kickstand should move when hitting bumps, mainly because the switch is touchy. I would realy torque the shorts out of the kickstand before I did anything else with the switch.

 

[macbusa]

There is a side stand switch connector behind the left fairing. Bypassed the switch at the connector so no wire cutting needed.

Bike runs fine now - looks like the real issue is with the kickstand itself. Just had the chain/sprockets replaced and the shop greased the kickstand. Even with the bolt torqued down there is still some play in the up position (after I cleaned all the crap off it).

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[XLCC]

This process should work if there are only two wires going into the sidestand switch: If the switch is normally in the open position, and putting the sidestand up closes the circuit, then you can just cut and cap the wires and remove the switch. Conversely if the switch is normally in the closed position, and putting the sidestand up opens the circuit, then you can cut the wires and solder them together and cap them... then remove the switch. You need to check the wiring diagram prior to trying anything like this. The wiring diagram should tell you whether the circuit is normally powered (closed) or unpowered (open). Cutting wires on any bike (or other machinery) that depends on electronic signals can lead to other problems. Remeber that defeating the switch in any manner will allow you to ride the bike with the sidestand down... not a prob for most experienced riders (esp those of us who rode before the stupid switch was ever thought about), but if you are new to this concept then watch your left turns!