Motor won't shut down

Riding home from work the other day and my rear header started to leak at the head, I am sure it is to do with the previous "header snapped" issue. I had the bike booked to go back under the warranty as I' was pretty sure one of the studs has snapped but as I'd welded the pipe up front I figured it was safe to use for a short (70 mile) trip..

The bike was duly picked up but before it went the loader wanted to hear it running, so I started it up...fine so far..

Unfortunately, when I turned the key to switch it off, although the headlight went out and the dash went off the engine kept on running. The kill switch had no effect.

Turn the key back on and it just powers the headlight and the dash... I tried to stall the bike but the drive was too wet (should have tried second or third gear I know now)...

I turned the ignition off, even took the key out and the motor finally coughed and died after another minute or so (presumably the fuel pump was off and it ran out of fuel without the ignition feed).

Any thoughts on what the issue is most likely to be?

On my old HD there was a pair of relays, one that did the start/stop/run circuitry and one that did the fuel pump, when one of those failed closed it causes a similar issue - does the XB have the same setup or do you think I am looking at a melted wiring/fusebox problem?

I can't go and check it out as the bike is away having the header done, hopefully they'll fix both, but just in case I'd like to have some ideas of what to check when it's back.

Are you sure it was engine sound? Fan can sound like an engine confusing people, it makes people think that this is engine sound, but this is just fan.

Oh no, this was the motor alright, it even revs up when you twist the throttle, 100% no confusing that :-)

Working through the wiring diagram i suspect the Ignition Relay (which provides the "switched ignition" feed to the ECM via a gray wire) may be jammed on, certainly that's the first place I'll look.. Unless I am reading it wrong, that's the relay that closes when the ignition switch is on and the kill switch is in "run"..

Directly from the service manual "If the engine should continue running when ignition is in the off position, simply continue to ride the hell out of that Buell. Continuing to run is a symptom of the motorcycle not being ready to be put away." I don't make the rules, I just follow them.

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Directly from the service manual "If the engine should continue running when ignition is in the off position, simply continue to ride the hell out of that Buell. Continuing to run is a symptom of the motorcycle not being ready to be put away." I don't make the rules, I just follow them.

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^Agreed:up:

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Originally Posted by ChiTownEngineer

Directly from the service manual "If the engine should continue running when ignition is in the off position, simply continue to ride the hell out of that Buell. Continuing to run is a symptom of the motorcycle not being ready to be put away." I don't make the rules, I just follow them.

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I have had that problem quite a few times :up:

+1 on a stuck ignition relay. Swap it out with another one in the box and see what happens.

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Originally Posted by Cooter

+1 on a stuck ignition relay. Swap it out with another one in the box and see what happens.

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Thanks Cooter, heard from the garage doing the warranty work, they'd had the bike a week and hadn't even started on it (I am not happy!!). They're pretty confident a rear stud has snapped, they've seen my (agricultural) weld on the front of the header and have agreed to replace it but say they cannot find any headers in stock anywhere (in the UK).

I'm pretty sure, if they took the seat off they'd see the note I left them, complete with part number AND phone number for a dealer here that has 2 sets in stock.... needless to say I'm not impressed at this stage of the game.