Newbusa

Wow!Quick responses,Well i will certainly try your ideas but,It still runs fine when dry,Only when you add water does it run bad.Will further investigate sunday.

Hawkrider

This has happened before to other members, and goes wayyyy back before the inception of this forum. The problem is with the tank vent hose. It's location allows water to enter the hose and then cause vacuum lock in the tank. Simply stopping and opening the tank filler will break the vacuum and the bike should run normally after that until the hose sucks up more water. The solution is to reroute the hose to another location or you could try cutting the end of the hose at an angle so that the hole is towards the rear of the bike.

If this does not solve your problem then the cause is probably electrical, but I'll bet 20 to 1 this is the cause.

Newbusa

Hmmm,Thanks for the tip Greg,Now which hose is the vent hose?There seems to be 2 hoses that could be vent hoses.{I know i should have a shop manual}Well maybe i will redirect both of them.

dantropolis

Easy first step to finding water related electrical problems:

In a dark garage with your headlight disconnected and the engine running, spray a mist of water over the engine from a little spray bottle. You may find the problem this way, look for arcing around connectors, plug wires, etc.

Good luck.

penst8grad

Make sure you leave a door or window open so we don't read about the dead guy found in his garage with the motorcycle running.

Newbusa

So a update on the running on one cylinder problem,It finally rained today,so took my bike out for a spin,And she ran fine no hiccups at all.This is after i rerouted my vent lines.So a big thanks to Hawkrider and all the other members who offered up ideas.

SLOHawk83

I have been running into this problem on more than one occasion. this first time happened when i first washed my bike after having my shop remove the carcoal canister, rejet it, add two bros pipes and a B&M filter. It ran like crap for almost a week, durring this week i changed the plugs, drained my tank, added new good fuel. This is all after checking hydrolock. It still ran like crap with the tank open. Then one magical day it stopped and it ran fine. Until i was on a road trip about a month ago i got caught in the rain and it all happened again. I stayed four days where i broke down (clear lake ca) and drained my tank added new fuel and heet additive and went home. Didnt seem to run excellent but it got me home. Now im pissed and wont ride it.

Hawkrider

Check for PVLIR (do a search). Also check for crimped or improper routing of fuel and vent lines.

SLOHawk83

I tracked down my fuel line vent and found that it was routed between my cylinders. Is this normal? i didnt like it and i thought that the flat spot would cause an air trap if water got in the line. I rerouted it to the left side of the engine and down the scoop. But it will be a little while before i get to test it. Thanks for the help i always use this site.

J-Bird487

just to throw it out there but you could pull your plug boots off and check the resistors in there. they say those dont go bad but i had a simmular problem like yours and i thought it was the coils and come to find out it was the resistors in the plug boots. you can check them with a meter.

kross

Just to throw my two cents in: I had problems with my bike in the rain as well, and found a fair amount of advice on this forum. I checked all the hoses (all clear), the electrical connections (greased/siliconed every wire I could find, from the plug wires to the starter motor wire, even the blinker connections), built an aluminum "spray guard" which I mounted so that it keeps water out of the front cylinder plug, all to no avail.

After the second attempt to fix the problem (read- after my second morning standing on the side of the freeway in the rain), I parked the bike in the driveway, started it, and sprayed it down with a garden hose for a few minutes- No stalling! Success, right?

No. Next day in the rain the bike started acting up again, but luckily it wasn't raining too hard and I was able to limp it home taking some side roads. As I was pulling the air box to check for electrical connections underneath ( I was at the end of my rope and convinced that the problem was electrical, since the bike acted like it was running on one cylinder) and noticed that the filter was wet. After looking closer I noticed that there's a plastic "diverter" in front of the air box that covers the area where the snorkel draws in air. It covers the space between where the frame comes together at the neck and extends down and back a bit. Problem was there's a good sized hole where the throttle cables pass through, almost 2"X2", just to the right of the air box snorkel.

I used some aluminum-backed all weather tape (the kind used to seal ductwork outside) to cover that hole and seal some other small openings (the plastic diverter is made up of a few smaller pieces that kind of snap together). I've ridden in some pretty heavy rain two different days since then with no problems so far.
I don't know if that hole is on all Superhawks (I've only got mine to look at, and haven't had it a year yet), but it's worth checking out if you've tried everything else.

My bike would run like crap, and as soon as I let off the throttle it would die. It would start back up with a little difficulty, but needed the same constant throttle to stay running, all the while sounding like a poorly tuned thumper. This only happened after riding about ten miles at freeway speeds in moderate rainfall. Light spray wasn't a problem, and riding in town was no trouble, which led me to believe there had to be a fair amount of water and it was being pushed somewhere that wasn't usually directly exposed to water.

Hope this helps someone, since this forum has helped me out and I'd like to return the favor.

FireRescue