I guess a bike this old will have some problem. 1990 fltc evo. problem is this. riding down the road the bike will go dead. don't know if it is fuel or fire. pull off the road and hit the switch the bike fires back up. ride it some more untill it does it again and then repeat procedure. decided to attack it as trash in carb. got home took float bowl off and no trash in fuel. check fuel screen in tank and it was clean. so now i'm thinking fireing problem. maybe ign. module. not real familar with this bike so I want to ask ya what do you think. also the hose at the bottom of float bowel, where does it go. it came off and I don't have a clue where it attaches to. thanks

 

My buddy recently had an issue that may be worth looking at. Since this ethanol crap is being forced on us, one of the concerns (worse on an older bike like ours) is that the alcohol can dislodge any crud that may have built up over the years. His petcock screen was realy restricted. It would run fine, but he would need to change to reserve realy early.. Yours might not be identical, but I'd look there if you think its fuel related..

 

The tiny hose on the bowl is an overflow/drain. It routes behind the rear tappet guide and down behind the engine case.

Seen the "dead then start" several times and you may have other problems, but bang the kill switch back and forth several times. They can get funky and if it breaks contact, the ign will stop and not re-fire till the engine has stopped.

 

I was thinking that hose might be an overflow hose. thanks. I will try that with the kill switch also. I've check the petcock screen and it was clean.

 

Stopped for a kid on the side of the road who had this problem. Turned out it was the ignition key. He wiggled it around a little and the bike started and kept on running instead of quickly shutting down. You might have a short in your ignition.

 

Either fuel or spark. Does it stumble a little and then die or just die like the kill button was pushed? Still could be hard to tell. I have a little pen gizmo I got from the auto parts store. It has batteries and a neon bulb. You hold it near a spark plug wire and if there's spark, the neon bulb will flash. Put it in your pocket, when it dies as your riding, hold it next to the plug wire and see if you have spark. No spark? Track that down. Spark? Then you have a fuel issue.

I had the same problem with my bike for several years. Couldn't find the problem. Finally, it died on me completely. The wire under the cone between the module and the sensor broke inside the insulation. You couldn't see it. It seems that it is a not-uncommon problem. The motor vibrates in the rubber mounting, the wire flexes there.

 

there is no spit and sputter. it just goes dead like your out of gas. I here a backfire or two while I'm pulling over off the road. all I do then is hit the start button and it fires right up and off I go. I hope I can fine the problem as I got a week long ride plan in 5 weeks. I'm going to get it back together today and play around with the kill switch and maybe check the ign. wires. thanks

 

i had similar symptoms with my 98 flhtc. pull over refire. started out infrequent and then got worse to the point it did restart. turned out to be the ignition switch. overheated the switch and melted. replaced, no troubles since.

 

update: got bike back together and took it for a spin. about 8 miles down the road it cut off. pull it off the road and try to crank it and nothing. no lights or anything. after 10-20 seconds I notice I had cluster lights hit the switch and it crank. well I continue on to my grandson ball game and I got to thinking about my ign. switch. ther are 5 position. lock-off-ign-lights-acess. I decided I would ride home with the switch in the "lights" position. I didn't have any problem going home. I got back out and rode it around with switch in that position and still no problems. Is this a sign my ign. switch is bad? where should I have the switch at when riding? lights comes on with it in the ign position also, so I don't understand the reason for a "light" position.

 

You should not have lights in ign. position. Someone must have done some rewiring. If your switch is bad they are discontinued and hard to find.