I've screwed up yet again and dropped my bike on the LEFT (edited from right) side while walking it (while on it) out of the garage. The kickstand got caught on my dog's rope and it pulled it back enough to cause it to be pushed back far enough that it tucked under after I started it and went to set it down on the stand. Needless to say, while trying to sit it on the stand, the bike fell over and immediately died. While dropping bikes like this has happened to me in the past, I've never had the problem of restarting like I did tonight. It wouldn't' start at all at first and when it finally did, it acted as if it were starved for gas no matter what position the choke was in. At first I though it was flooded, but even even getting it started, it still acted starved and a pinging/knocking sound was coming from the engine even above 1200rpm. After fighting with it for about 20 minutes, I finally managed to get it to stay running, but the "starved for gas" routine and knocking continued. Even after finally getting it though all that, I ended up having to adjust the idle speed because it would drop way below 1K with the choke off. Why would I have to do this? I have a feeling that once all this is over, I'll have to re-adjust the idle. At this point, I took it for a test spin and while coming into a corner, the engine just died. It re-started and seems to be OK now, but I'm a bit worried about the bike now. What could I have possible damaged to cause this to happen? Other than a few Marks on the frame slider and some scratches on the mirror and rear faring, I don't' see any other damage.

 

I noticed one other thing now. . .I took it to work with me today and while it seems to run just fine, when I was making my various stops after work and restarted, there was a strange hesitation in starting. Nothing major, but it wasn't there before. The plugs were just changed. This is starting to frustrate me.

 

The plugs may have gotten wet, though I have a hard time believing that's what happened. Maybe you had a float stick open...

--Chris

 

Well, my commute to work and back is about 115 miles so I doubt it.

 

Really? So what is it then?

 

from what I've been told, even after a small drop on it's side, a bike's throttle linkage can be knock out of synic and adjustment. This may be why you had to adjust your idle.

 

Does your bike have a sensor in the kickstand that if damaged, the bike wouldn't start?

 

there is a kick stand switch, but that will kill the ignition system completely and wouldn't eventualy restart if it was damaged. The switch is either open or closed.

 

It's not the sidestand switch. Besides, I think the big yellow "S" light would give that away and even if it didnt' come come, the bike simply wont run if the swich is screwed up. As was posted above, the throttle linkage was out of adjustment and is why I had to re-adjust idle speed but I've yet to figure out why there is hesitation (like it's starved for gas) in the start. It's just so un-honda like behavior. As I've said before, it seems to run OK now, but SOMETHING isn't right and it's that something that I'm trying to figure out before the bike strands me someplace.