Stalling when hot R1200GSA

[Bill Grafton]

Hi All. First post here and after a bit of a steer please. I have an issue with a 2012 R1200GSA, air cooled, 47,000 miles, good condition. Engine starts and runs fine but, after a good blast, on decelerating into say a 30mph zone, the engine sometimes, but not always, splutters, runs roughly, won't idle and eventually stalls. It will restart lumpily and needs loads of revs to keep it running, but will then stop for good. Once cooled it will start fine. No faults on OBD. Drained tank completely and refilled with good fuel in case down to 'poor fuel'. I've changed sparks, air filter, cleaned O2 lambda sensors on exhaust. No vacuum pressure on opening fuel tank. Had all coils out in turn and checked sparks against the engine with a 5th spark plug. I'm no expert but they look healthy with a decent 20mm jump across and all sparks across look similar with no single one looking any weaker than the others. No cracks evident in the coil casings. The Haynes manual says that the sparks should be thick and blue in colour - I've got thick and yellowish / whiteish. Any guidance gratefully received. Thank you in advance, all.

 

[Santa-2512]

Hi All. First post here and after a bit of a steer please. I have an issue with a 2012 R1200GSA, air cooled, 47,000 miles, good condition. Engine starts and runs fine but, after a good blast, on decelerating into say a 30mph zone, the engine sometimes, but not always, splutters, runs roughly, won't idle and eventually stalls. It will restart lumpily and needs loads of revs to keep it running, but will then stop for good. Once cooled it will start fine. No faults on OBD. Drained tank completely and refilled with good fuel in case down to 'poor fuel'. I've changed sparks, air filter, cleaned O2 lambda sensors on exhaust. No vacuum pressure on opening fuel tank. Had all coils out in turn and checked sparks against the engine with a 5th spark plug. I'm no expert but they look healthy with a decent 20mm jump across and all sparks across look similar with no single one looking any weaker than the others. No cracks evident in the coil casings. The Haynes manual says that the sparks should be thick and blue in colour - I've got thick and yellowish / whiteish. Any guidance gratefully received. Thank you in advance, all.

Could be

TPS sensor on LH throttle body

£96+ OE about 40 on the bay


And coils could be breaking down - there are loads of posts on how to test

Throttle/fuelling issue?!

2004 GS. Nice fresh oil and filter and a new air filter (just to remove these as possible culprits). In neutral it revs up absolutely fine and in fact if I use less than about 1/3 throttle it'll rev all the way too (bit weird to rev a bike so high under small throttle!). But at around 3-4k revs...

www.ukgser.com

Welcome aboard btw

 

[Bill Grafton]

Could be

TPS sensor on LH throttle body

£96+ OE about 40 on the bay


And coils could be breaking down - there are loads of posts on how to test

Throttle/fuelling issue?!

2004 GS. Nice fresh oil and filter and a new air filter (just to remove these as possible culprits). In neutral it revs up absolutely fine and in fact if I use less than about 1/3 throttle it'll rev all the way too (bit weird to rev a bike so high under small throttle!). But at around 3-4k revs...

www.ukgser.com

Welcome aboard btw

Many thanks Santa-2512. I've only tested coils on cold.

 

[Santa-2512]

Many thanks Santa-2512. I've only tested coils on cold.

Steptoe & Mikeyboy

are the experts on the marque, but you'll find most of us will pass on what knowledge we know

 

[Slipperyeel]

As above. First thought is coils or plugs. If you replace the coil(s) they can be picked up for a reasonable cost from a number of vendors (sparkplugs.co.uk is one) but others may chime in with other suggestions. New plugs can make a surprising difference if they old ones are knackered.

Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk

 

[Bill Grafton]

As above. First thought is coils or plugs. If you replace the coil(s) they can be picked up for a reasonable cost from a number of vendors (sparkplugs.co.uk is one) but others may chime in with other suggestions. New plugs can make a surprising difference if they old ones are knackered.

Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk

Thanks Slipperyeel - yes, new NGKs already fitted but problem remains. Pointing to coils...

 

[Slipperyeel]

Here are the coils OEM part numbers. Usually you can search on the sites with these numbers and the alternatives will come up - note that a few other well known brands are exactly the same Beru items!

Coils:

LH & RH upper coils same part - 12137715847

LH lower - 12137715857

RH lower - 12137715858




Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk

 

[Bill Grafton]

Here are the coils OEM part numbers. Usually you can search on the sites with these numbers and the alternatives will come up - note that a few other well known brands are exactly the same Beru items!

Coils:

LH & RH upper coils same part - 12137715847

LH lower - 12137715857

RH lower - 12137715858




Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk

Perfect - thanks fella!

 

[vtr1000sp1]

Replaced my coils last year with these from https://www.autodoc.co.uk/ prices may have gone up…

 

[Bill Grafton]

Replaced my coils last year with these from https://www.autodoc.co.uk/ prices may have gone up…

Thanks - yes they're up to 233GBP now...

 

[kevmax]

Hi All. First post here and after a bit of a steer please. I have an issue with a 2012 R1200GSA, air cooled, 47,000 miles, good condition. Engine starts and runs fine but, after a good blast, on decelerating into say a 30mph zone, the engine sometimes, but not always, splutters, runs roughly, won't idle and eventually stalls. It will restart lumpily and needs loads of revs to keep it running, but will then stop for good. Once cooled it will start fine. No faults on OBD. Drained tank completely and refilled with good fuel in case down to 'poor fuel'. I've changed sparks, air filter, cleaned O2 lambda sensors on exhaust. No vacuum pressure on opening fuel tank. Had all coils out in turn and checked sparks against the engine with a 5th spark plug. I'm no expert but they look healthy with a decent 20mm jump across and all sparks across look similar with no single one looking any weaker than the others. No cracks evident in the coil casings. The Haynes manual says that the sparks should be thick and blue in colour - I've got thick and yellowish / whiteish. Any guidance gratefully received. Thank you in advance, all.

I had similar on my R1200 GS LC, I think yours may have a similar enough setup in that area.
Check the earthing cable of both sparkplug coils. They can get damaged and snap when changing spark plugs incorrectly, by not removing the earth bolt, instead bending the cable back. It can snap the cable and cause a dry contact in the cable (two wires just touching together inside the cable tape of heat shrink). This can appear fine when testing the cable while its cold but, will separate slightly from each other when the cable is heated up during running, causing the bike to splutter and stall and restart when cooled down again. Just cleaned it back and solder jointed it, better than new. Also had dry joint issue with the master fuse on an old Bandit. Melted my head trouble shooting it. BEST OF LUCK PAL..

 

[Bill Grafton]

I had similar on my R1200 GS LC, I think yours may have a similar enough setup in that area.
Check the earthing cable of both sparkplug coils. They can get damaged and snap when changing spark plugs incorrectly, by not removing the earth bolt, instead bending the cable back. It can snap the cable and cause a dry contact in the cable (two wires just touching together inside the cable tape of heat shrink). This can appear fine when testing the cable while its cold but, will separate slightly from each other when the cable is heated up during running, causing the bike to splutter and stall and restart when cooled down again. Just cleaned it back and solder jointed it, better than new. Also had dry joint issue with the master fuse on an old Bandit. Melted my head trouble shooting it. BEST OF LUCK PAL..

Many thanks kevmax - much appreciated fella!

 

[Bill Grafton]

Many thanks kevmax - much appreciated fella!

@kevmax, in your case was it primary or secondary coil? Thanks.

 

[mpgscott]

Maybe a stupid one but have you balanced the throttle bodies? Maybe just a small adjustment on the throttle at the handlebars to hold its idle. Just thinking the idle is maybe set too low?

Just a thought..

 

[kevmax]

@kevmax, in your case was it primary or secondary coil? Thanks.

Sorry for the late reply.
From me it was on the Right side, so if I'm correct in saying it is the primary coil. I suspected it was dirty fuel at first as I had just filled up and the symptoms were similar. The engine warning symbol appeared so I plugged in the Moto Scan tool which gave a coil fault. On further investigation the cable was broken inside the surrounding tape as described previous. Any result on your Issue?? If so, please post it up here. I'd be interested in the conclusion.

 

[Bill Grafton]

Maybe a stupid one but have you balanced the throttle bodies? Maybe just a small adjustment on the throttle at the handlebars to hold its idle. Just thinking the idle is maybe set too low?

Just a thought..

Thanks mpgscott - its idling fine the vast majority of the time so I don't think its that. Its only happening when engine is hot, has been under heavy load and then throttle dropped to zero eg entering 30mph zone after a blast.

 

[Bill Grafton]

Sorry for the late reply.
From me it was on the Right side, so if I'm correct in saying it is the primary coil. I suspected it was dirty fuel at first as I had just filled up and the symptoms were similar. The engine warning symbol appeared so I plugged in the Moto Scan tool which gave a coil fault. On further investigation the cable was broken inside the surrounding tape as described previous. Any result on your Issue?? If so, please post it up here. I'd be interested in the conclusion.

Thanks kevmax. Renewed all the coils yesterday in a costly process of elimination, but still same issue. Some have suggested Throttle Position Sensor so I'm going to have a try with that and also look at the cabling again as you suggest. Externally the surrounding tape looks perfectly fine. The cables are right next to the engine so could heat up and if frayed contact / earth, I suppose. The scan tool previously recorded no faults.

 

[Santa-2512]

Thanks kevmax. Renewed all the coils yesterday in a costly process of elimination, but still same issue. Some have suggested Throttle Position Sensor so I'm going to have a try with that and also look at the cabling again as you suggest. Externally the surrounding tape looks perfectly fine. The cables are right next to the engine so could heat up and if frayed contact / earth, I suppose. The scan tool previously recorded no faults.

I'd have done the TPS first, its only £50 odd from the bay

 

[botus]

Crank position sensor


perfect example - rip it the aging sensor gets over heated, tickle in to town the engine stumbles and stalls - next day cold sensor often behaves perfectly - but over 6 months use it will degrade till it wont run anywhere

this is a NORMAL failure of Bosch designed to fail tat on motor cars at they hit 10 years or so - often worth swapping on old cars just to avoid the breakdown that's coming

 

[Bill Grafton]

Crank position sensor


perfect example - rip it the aging sensor gets over heated, tickle in to town the engine stumbles and stalls - next day cold sensor often behaves perfectly - but over 6 months use it will degrade till it wont run anywhere

this is a NORMAL failure of Bosch designed to fail tat on motor cars at they hit 10 years or so - often worth swapping on old cars just to avoid the breakdown that's coming

Many thanks botus. That's really helpful - quite a definitive known symptom and potential fix. I'll try that next. Very much appreciated.