Our round trip was about 6,000 miles, East Tennessee to Durango, then San Diego, CA and back. Used about 3/4 quart of oil on this trip and I did have some issues.
1- At high altitude I stalled on taking off at a stop light and immediately hit the start button. The engine started right up but I got 'Limp Mode'. I pulled over on the other side of the intersection, shut the engine off, waited about 30 seconds and re-started. Limp mode cleared and that was the end of that.
2- During our ride to 'The 'Million Dollar Highway' between Silverton and Ouray we stopped for gas. I didn't need any so I just pulled to the side and sat waiting for others to fuel up. Then smoke started rolling out from under my seat above the battery compartment (engine off). Looked like my Spyder was on fire! (where is a good fireman when you need one!?). We are not talking a little bit of smoke here. As the worse case senerio ran through my mind and I'm seeing myself riding the back of another Spyder like Peoriafirefighter Dan, I popped the seat to see what was up.
I had installed wiring for heated gear about a year ago. The pigtail connectors are coiled under the seat near the battery and these were melting away and furiously generating smoke. I Pulled the fuses (wondering why they had not blown in the 1st place) but that didn't help. How could my wires continue to glow red hot with no fuses?
I had charged my battery just before the trip and did not get the cover completely back over the positive battery terminal. The negative connection on the heated gear terminals protrude and the pigtail had worked its way down to the exposed positive battery terminal and shorted out. That is why the fuses did not blow.
Amazingly, there was no collateral damage and I simply cut off the melted wiring and I was good to go.
3- My aftermarket Audiovox cruise control quit on me about 300 miles into the trip. Being able to take my right hand off the throttle really increases my ablilty to go long distance without too much discomfort.
4- I ordered a new control head for my cruise control thinking this might resolve the issue. I had it sent to my Brother-in-Law's home in California where we were headed to from Durango. It came on Monday and I installed it Tuesday eveing. I was staying about 25 miles away at my mother's home so after the install was completed I pulled out about 10pm and discovered that I had NO HEADLIGHTS! AAaaahhhhh! My dash board said the headlights were on, but they weren't.
It is a long, dark road from Lakeside to Poway up Hwy 67. I do have the LED Day Runners and Pucks but these are very short distance lights. Not intended to replace headlights. I could have just stayed at my B-I-L's house but I'm too stubborn for that so I kept going. Wouldn't you know, just a few miles up the road I pass a highway patrol going the other way! I watch my mirror for his brake lights (can't see anything in front of me anyway!) but nothing! He just keeps going! One less issue!
I finally come up behind a car going the same way and I rode his headlights the rest of the way to my mother's house.
Next day I get up early and tear my Spyder down. I got very little sleep thinking of how in the world installing the Cruise Control head caused the loss of my headlights and I'm not coming up with any ideas. I've got HID's from KB Car Stuff (great products by the way and I highly recommend their HID headlights). After checking everything I could think of I called Lamont.
He says 'Did you check this?' (yes), 'Did you try that?', (yes) until he runs out of ideas too. It didn't look good because we were leaving the next morning. I can make it back to East Tennessee without cruise control, but not without headlights. So I went back to the house and sat down on the couch to rack my brain again. It's a small rack so I figured it wouldn't take too long.
What kept nagging me was that each headlight runs off its own isolated system. If a bulb burned out or a ballast went bad I'd still have 1 headlight. With both going out at the same time it would seem to be a power issue, not a headlight issue. I knew the relay was working so the power had to be cut between the relay and the headlights.
I kept thinking that when we installed the HID's there were fuses involved. I could not find any fuses under the instrument bezzel and I asked Lamont about them. He couldn't remember for sure if there were fuses or not. After about 30 minutes it struck me. I just assumed that the install of the cruise control head and the headlight issue happened at the same time. But as I thought about when I last rode my Spyder at night it occurred to me that I had only ridden in the dark once since my 'fire' incident at the Silverton gas station. And this was a very short distance right in Durango where I may not have noticed that my headlights were out.
With a light bulb coming on in my brain and joy in my heart (along with a bit of embarrisment that I had not realized this sooner) I grabbed the fuses I'd removed several days earlier and went out to my Spyder. In my frinzy to end the meltdown of my wiring I'd removed 3 fuses. As it turns out, 1 was for my heated gear pigtails and 2 were for the HID headlights. Lamont and I had run power directly off the battery for the headlights (as probably recommended in the instructions) so they were located in the same area as the pigtail fuse. It had been so long ago that I'd forgotten.
Chrisis Averted!
So, though I did have issues, none were BRP/Spyder related. All's well that ends well!
pps:.
