Engine Shuts down suddenly no lights and no electrical -Totally dead
 

Need help please ; I was on the highway last week the SH just shut down and wouldn't restart no lights no nothing and no crank etc. Ended up being flatbeded back home :-( Thanks

..... I know have lights just a click when I go to star her.

Start with the likely culprit on this bike- the R/R. Visually inspect it and the connector. Then check your battery voltage if you have a multimeter. If you don't, they're inexpensive and highly useful. It sounds like you were relatively lucky and it just undercharged battery (did you notice flickering dash lights or anything?).

Everything just going dead could be a main fuse, but if you have lights now, that's not it.

If you have a melted R/R connector or low sitting battery voltage then that's most likely the problem and you should take this opportunity to upgrade to a MOSFET unit.

If the connector is fine and the battery voltage looks fine, I'd try to jump it or use a different battery (just in case the battery has good voltage but no load capacity). If you jump it from a car, make sure to NOT turn the car on (car alternators can overcharge your system) but just hook it up to your bike and try to start the bike. If the bike turns on, your battery is dead and you still likely need a new R/R as it was probably undercharging your battery, in which case do the same as above but also replace the battery.

If those don't work, make sure your clutch and side stand switch are clean and working . They wouldn't explain the bike turning completely off, but sometimes electricity decides to go medieval and use magic rather than logic and science.

Good bet it's your regulator rectifier (R/R). The later years have the slightly better finned one but the best bet is to upgrade to a mosfet unit off an R1, etc. There is plenty of info on here regarding the upgrade and it's one of the few problem areas on our bikes. Obviously double check all your connections, battery cables, etc and main fuse also but if you have lights I'm sure that's still good.

First thing first! I would check the battery connections first, see if it's loose and than check as on the above posts, start with the simple things first!

Okay i tried jumping it....no go BUT the connect was very lose. i need a nut to keep the screws in... i will try tomorrow. FYI I changed the r/r two months ago... a new battery was installed prior to the R/R going bad...

i will update tomorrow

Ah- if you replaced it with a stock or even an aftermarket plug in "upgrade" without doing anything else, then the R/R is probably the culprit. Look into this thread:

https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...why-how-25117/

The short of it is, the OEM shunt type R/R's are dated and inferior equipment relative to MOSFET units. If you had one go bad, likely you didn't fix any of the issues that caused it's death to accelerate. Corroded connectors, high heat, etc will make a shunt R/R eat itself pretty quickly. I bet your plug is looking like someone took a BIC to it once or twice if I had to guess. So, while cleaning the connections on the OEM plug and adding some fins or cooling fans will help quite a bit, it is still just polishing the proverbial turd. Sometimes jumping a completely dead battery won't start the bike as it can't hold the voltage (hence why it might be a good idea to grab a multimeter to get a baseline voltage).

Now, there's a chance something else is happening that us internet folks can't see. Have you checked your fuses? Is the starter getting any upshot in voltage when you hit the starter button?

Keep updating...

I had it happen to my bike once. It turned out to be corrosion on the red connector for the starter relay. It got wet when I was washing the bike.

It is the connector next to the main battery cable under the seat on the left side of the rear subframe.

BTW, when you jump the bike, if you doing that off a car, do not run the car while doing that, not a good practice with motorcycles, in the event that your R/R survived, it may not survive the extra boost from the car charging system.

Just purchased cbr 1100xx!!
Now back to the Hawk! Checked the connections and cleaned those that needed it. Put a new battery in her all I get is a click from the starter relay in the rear and then smoke from the battery...

i am thinking starter motor?

Smoke from the battery? That's not good.

Only time I've got a click like that is when the side stand switch was saying kick stand was down. And or when my bike was in gear.

So if your battery is smoking first find out exactly where it's coming from. If its battery I'd definately check it out. Then I'd possibly check the side stand switch and nuetral switch.