I pulled the bike out this afternoon for a short ride. Due to a busy work schedule and some significant rain my bike had been sitting for about 3 weeks with a partial tank of fuel. Bike fired up ok, and seemed fine while warming up. As I pulled out of my neighborhood, I started seeing problems with the bike. It was surging, sputtering, and backfiring. I assumed I had a gas problem and started limping to the closest gas station. Along the way the bike died and I coasted into a stranger's driveway. This is where thing got weird. When i tried to restart the bike, I had no electrical activity - no lights, no starter, nothing. The owner of the property I'd stopped on offered me some tools, and I started troubleshooting the bike. Everything looked ok, and when I turned the key the bike lit up. Bike started and continued to run like crap. I was able to limp it a gas station, I added some octane booster and topped the tank off with good gas. A few more miles later, and everything was back to running fine.

So here's my question for those that have had a similar experience, is it possible that the electrical issue was a factor of the bike stalling out or do I have another gremlin waiting to bite me in the rear?

 

Was your bike sitting out in the rain those three weeks? Seems kind of low probability that the gas would go bad after so short a time. My first instinct would be to check the battery connections and the output of the charging circuit. FWIW, my son's Buell gets really cranky if we leave the cover on after it rains. Moisture seems to get in somewhere and I have to go ride the hell out of it for an hour or so to get it back to normal.

 

Sounds really familiar. Got a couple of suggestions and even more questions.
Wifes 05 1200XL acted funny the first time after a bath. Water seeped into the main fuses water proof cover. HD service found it and the bike ran great for a while.
Eventually the serious surging and sputtering began with guages jumping and dummy lights flashing. Another local service guy traced everything to find solenoid bad. He replaced it and bike was good again.....for a while.

Took our bikes out a couple of weekends later. She nailed it to pass one time that afternoon and I swear brown smoke came from pipes. She tends to get on engines a little hard, but I've never seen a puff of smoke that color from a motor. But the bike ran fine.
We ran her low of gas before filling up. (first thought - wondering if draining tank so low stirred sediment or caused something to clot in filter? But couldn't get the brown smoke outa my head.)
On the way home the surging and back firing started again. But we made it back ok.
The next day, the bike wouldn't start. Battery completely drained. (Second thought - wondering now if its something electrical. We've had battery checked multiple times due to solenoid issue and wondering if replacing solenoid just bandaided another issue the service guy didn't find)

Charged the bike and took it out after lunch. I noticed her falling back within a few miles so I stopped to let her catch me. Said it was acting funny again so we headed it back to the garage. On the way back it backfired constantly and extremely loud, shooting flames from the pipes each time. Guages jump, dummy lights flashed. Slowing into our neighborhood it began surging violently. I stopped her to swap out bikes to prevent it from throwing her. It died before I could get going, but fired back up and acted fine the three blocks home.

Had to charge again the next week to get it fired. Headed a block up the street before it surged and backfired a couple of times and died. Wouldn't restart. Wouldn't push start. Had to push it back to the garage, where its sat ever since. Lack of $$ keeping me from putting it back in the shop, so hoping to find something here. Your mention of gas makes sense. Going to try draining the tank and putting a little octane boost in with new gas to see what we get.
Still wondering about fuel filter or petcock being clogged, which could offer some of the same syptoms we've mentioned. Another post mentioned stopped up fuel cap causing backfiring problems.

Hope maybe some of my symptoms will give you ideas.
Good luck. Its frustrating the crap out of us.lol

 

The bike sits in an enclosed trailer when not being ridden. Most secure option I have given that I live in a condo. After topping off the fuel and adding the octane boost, the bike seemed to ride ok. I think I may have screwed up and filled her with low grade, maybe I didn't notice it at the time because the bike was warm? Still not totally sure.

Gonna take another good look at all the electrical connections. It is possible that a fuse or relay was loose. I've had a problem previously with the battery ground, but a little blue locktite solved that. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get her back out on the road tommorrow or Wednesday.

 

Plug wires do not last very long two years max so when wet misfireing happens the other thing I know is my injected bike hates water in the fuel it has died and needed octane booster. This all happened on a fall ride home in the rain some back road gas station that had not sold high grade in a while I,d guess.