Grounded

So I have installed the new Hall Effect Sensor, set the timing and think I'm golden. No such luck, you think? Correct.  After my first ride to test out the timing settings I came back home and parked the bike. Later that day I decided to go out for a quick shopping trip and as I stopped for a light it sounded like the engine was dying again. Crap! But the revs picked up again and as a precaution I pulled over to the right side of the road and made a turn off a busy road onto a back street. Good call. As I turned the corner the engine just plain quit. Instead of the slow bogging down , this time it was a quick death. Hmm....The side street was mostly a downhill so I popped the clutch and it sorta started again for a brief period, accelerated and then again it failed.  After rolling further downhill it was completely dead. I had lights etc, but it would not restart. So I dismounted, waited and eventually it came back to life. Bizarre and disappointing.

I was not far from home and managed to make it back to the house without it failing again. This intermittent failure thing is annoying, but this time I really had not ridden the bike a long way and it did not seem to be hot. So maybe I am chasing another failure mode?

Anyway, I made some more inquiries online and the next suggestion was to look at the ignition switch. I had not thought about that since the bike always seemed to start up perfectly from a cold start. I looked up the instructions for how to remove the switch and clean the contacts. While cleaning the contacts, I happened to accidentally tug one of the wires and it broke off.  (Duh-I should have inspected all of the wires first since a frayed wire could explain a lot).  Apparently, that ground wire had been frayed down to a couple strands pulling all the juice. Didnt take much to break it off, and so even if it wasnt the problem-it was going to be a problem soon.

So I resoldered the wires and cleaned up all the contacts. At this point I cant say I am confident that the situation is behind me, but I can say that at least one future headache has been avoided. While I had the gas tank off I also checked every connection and ground wire I could find. In particular I focused on the main ground wire attached to the frame and made sure it was good and tight.

I'll take it for a ride next weekend and see if this helped. Fingers crossed.