Loss of everything - again

Scary moment on the way home tonight.

Left work late and had fairly pitch black clear roads.
Enjoying a blat through some twiddly bits at 70-80 ish about 20 miles into a 35 mile run

THEN

Lights go out
Engine stops
Instrument lights go out

I can see F*** All.
No one can see me.

Step on the back brake (no idea why but i didn't touch the front)
Look for somewhere to pull off the road

By the time I'm down to about 20 mph the lights come on again!
Instruments light up!

Clutch in, press starter, engine starts!
Ride home, change trousers!!!!!!!!.

So has anyone any idea what the problem is?

I had something similar (but less dramatic) about 2 weeks ago.
Since then i have checked all the wiring, changed all the fuses, even though the originals seemed to be ok, cleaned up and copper-slipped the main earth.
Next move is to change the ignition switch, got part way through that on Sunday only to find I needed security torx bits to get the top clamp off.

I thought I had sorted it until tonight

Seriously thinking that the SV will have to go if I cant sort this out quickly.

sounds scary,it could be a bad ear.th......i think you need to get this sorted asap, could be dangerous if happens in the dark (like today

[TSM]

mabey a bad contact in the ignition key.

If everything dies then it sounds like a dodgy earth. This is clearly a very bad situation that is happening, usually a bad earth isn't nearly as dramatic as this.

Electricity follows the route of least resistance. If you connect positive directly to earth, it'll generally flow that way, as opposed to going through instruments where there's resistance. (OK, so that's an over simplification and some would go through the instruments, but principal stands)

If I were you, I'd be seriously tempted to just replace the whole loom. If this doesn't cure it, at least you can sell one of them on to recover costs a little.

Like TSM said, it could be a dodgy contact on the ignition, there's not many other places that would cause the whole bike to die. Take the ignition out, turn the igniion on, and maybe even the engine, give everything a wiggle to see what happens.

The only other place I can even think of right now is anywhere in the charging circuitry. I know my car has a relay between the alternator & the battery (I've just had to change the damn thing) which basically says "if the engine is running, charge the battery and run the engine from the alternator, if the engine isn't running, use the battery." I haven't checked the SV wiring diagram, but perhaps theres a seperate relay, perhaps it's built into the reg./rect. If this has 'fused' for any reason, it'll be carbonated, which can occasionally cause strange issues as the electricity doesn't pass through the relay properly.

Keep it safe mate, and use sensible judgement about riding your bike in the dark until this issue is resolved. No-one on the forum wants to read the news about a biker in hospital or worse because he had no lights on at night. If you don't have already, I'd invest in some hi-vis gear to at least make you seen when the bike dies.

Update.

Went out again today - in Daylight - thanks Baph

Less than a mile from home I had a repeat performance.

Fiddled, pulled and poked at all the wires - no joy

Called the AA out, spent 45mins chatting about bikes with the patrol whilst we fiddled, pulled and poked at all the wires - no joy

Got the bike recovered to the local bike shop - pucka van properly equipped for bikes!

Now in their hands. I can feel my credit card squirming in my pocket as I type.

Still this could be a life or death issue so no more playing about myself.

Cheers folks
Chris

bit late i know but i've had this on my old africa twin, twice! 1st was a loose battery connection, 2nd was kinked ignition wire!

Hi.

I had this happen to me years ago in a car I owned which was a Vauxhall Magnum. It turned out to be the battery. All of a sudden the car would go completly dead, no lights, engine, etc. If I hit a bump or jabbed the brakes on, everything would come back to life. The battery had a broken connection between the cells inside. The movement of the car was enough to cause the circuit to make and break. After I changed the battery everything was ok.

Kind regards
Tim

IIRC with what I described in my earlier post can only happen if an alternator is used. With a dynamo everything would work as normal (except for starting when the problem strikes). This seems strange at first but an alternator needs an electrical supply to work, a dynamo does not.

Kind regards
Tim

[en4rab]

I had a similar experience with the yamaha XJ600 that I had before I got an SV650.
It turned out that the main ignition wire that ran from the battery to the ignition switch had corroded badly and broken in one of the molex connectors in the loom, It was ok unless you turned the handlebar to the right when it would pull slightly on the loom and break the connection.
The best way to spot this is look into the back of the connectors in the loom and look for a greenish white powder coming out the back of the connectors, if you see that pull on the wire with the worst powder and you may find it will fall out.
This happend on my bike because the affected wire was permenantly connected to the positive terminal of the battery so it sped up corrosion, happily all it took to fix the situation was a pair of wire cutters, some mains cable i had lying around, some heatshrink tubing and a soldering iron, bits of the loom are now either brown, blue or green and yellow lol
This problem also occoured on the XJ600's safety interlock relay thingy which was under the rear right hand passenger seat, it would get wet and the molex connector would rot so the starter wouldnt engage but you could bump start it.
en4rab

[IanG]

Originally Posted by seedy100

Got the bike recovered to the local bike shop - pucka van properly equipped for bikes!

Now in their hands. I can feel my credit card squirming in my pocket as I type.

Is it fixed yet? and if yes what was the problem?