Bike died going down the interstate

[2wheeladdict]

Alright, so I was riding home from a weekend trip Tuesday night on the interstate when all the sudden the OPL started flickering weirdly and the engine died. I was doing about 75mph@5krpm. I did not lose electrics (i.e. gagues were lit etc...), the engine just stopped firing. I didn't even notice for a second the engine died, I think the back tire was turning the motor over in 6th gear.

I pulled over and tried to restart it; initially it would just crank. However, after a few minutes of waiting it started again and died a few seconds later. Waited a few more minutes when the state trooper arrived and tried riding it to get off at the next exit, but the bike had almost no power and the back locked up on me when the engine died again. I don't understand why the first time the engine slowed to a halt but the second time it was so violent? So I called a truck and towed it home.

Fast forward to yesterday, I went out to start it and she fired right up, that left me confused. Now today I had some time to start troubleshooting and she started right up again, however when I started giving some revs the engine died. Restarting was unsuccessful initially but I waited a few minutes and it started right up again, rode it up and down the street (very gingerly) and it worked but something was just off about the idle and throttle response. Seemed to be idling low, closer to 1000rpm on the gauge when I though idle should be like 12-1300rpm on the 955i engine.

Some things to mention:
     -when the engine cut out on the interstate it was after about 3 hours of at or below freezing temperatures, yes I know I'm a bit
      crazy but I gotta ride
     -I noticed the OPL started coming on now, goes away at 1500rpm when cold but when warmed up OPL wouldn't go away till
      4-5000rpm
     -bike is a 2001 Tiger 955i with 51,000 miles

I checked the battery and all fuses are OK. Thought maybe it could be the side stand switch but that wouldn't seem to match up with the engine dying on the side stand in neutral today?

Could it be a bearing on the crank seized or some other mechanical failure exacerbated by heat? Or is it more likely to be an electrical problem caused by road salt/cold?

Any guidance into thoughts or first troubleshooting steps would be appreciated!


EDIT: I went out and drained the oil (left the filter on) and a whopping 500mL came out , also was a bit of "glitter" but not as much as I would expect from a seized bearing? I just changed the oil with Yamalube 10-40 at about 49,500 miles which means my motor ate nearly 3.5L of oil in 1500 miles!?
         
Also I realized this post should probably be in one of the technical forums, does anyone know how to move a thread?



     

[Timbox2]

Unfortunately looks like youve answered your own question. You may have cooked the motor. I would check the airbox to see if you have a lot of oil in there from the  breather. Could be the rotary breather seal has gone,  which shows as high oil consumption.  In extreme cases it can lead to Hydraulic lock.( Your back wheel locking up?)  The seal is in the front of the L/H engine cover (Stator) that the breather tube connects to. What damage youve done to the motor is anyones guess, you may be lucky or not.

A way to check if its the seal at fault is to ride the bike fairly hard for a few miles then stop and quickly pull the breather pipe off the cover, if the seals gone you'll get a fair bit of oil dripping back down the tube. Dunno if you can still do this mind?

Blimey, managed to find couple of pics of when i did mine:


Old seal removed,



End of the shaft that the seal runs on

[2wheeladdict]

Hmm that may be the case, I won't have much time to look too far into it till next week probably but I don't have my hopes up too high for the motors condition.

My current thoughts are to pull the valve cover and sump cover to do a light inspection of the cams/bottom end and go from there.

I'm just shocked that It could possibly burn that much oil that quickly! The bike doesn't leak a drop while parked and I haven't noticed any smoke out the tailpipe besides some condensation on startup from it sitting in the cold overnight.

Once I get the valve cover and sump off I'll re-evaluate what I want to do. Thanks for the thought about the breather seal!