Just last week, I had planned a solo ride to Sravanbelagola and Belur Halebid. I started my ride at a relaxed 10.30Am, and hit the Bangalore-Pune NH4. Everything was going as per schedule. I had a lunch stop over at Hassan, at 1.30Pm, 200Km away from Bangalore. Soon after lunch I hit the highway at 3Pm, to go to my first destination of the day which was Belur, 35Km ahead.
The road was very good, which allowed me to cruise at a comfortable 120Kmph. I was 9Km ahead of Hassan, and suddenly the red warning light came on. This has randomly happened before whenever the Pulsar 220 goes above 120Kmph (no one at Bajaj Service is sure why this happens). The only way to make that light go away is to do a full reboot of the bike. Since I was at a high speed already, and the road was clear, I decided not to stop for the reboot. I came down to 2nd gear to reduce speed, and turned off the engine while pressing the clutch. It normally takes an approximate 15 secs to reboot and finish priming the fuel pump, after which I start the engine. This time the engine did not start after the boot up was complete. I rebooted again, still in motion, and even then the engine did not start!
Now I was worried, as this has never happened before. As a last attempt, I rebooted again, and this time tried to start the engine by engaging the gear. Nothing happened, it just would not start. Finally I came to a halt, pulled the bike on center stand and tried starting multiple times. Each time I rebooted, the fuel pump priming sounded normal, the starter motor would run normally, but there was just no ignition. The engine would sound as if it had run out fuel (there was at least 10L of petrol as I had tanked up earlier), and the starter would just run. Finally the battery low indicator started flashing on the LCD console.
I was 9Km ahead of Hassan, the only place to get decent shelter and help for the Pulsar 220. I checked my mobile, there was just one bar on my Nokia indicating weak network strength. There were a few huts in sight a few hundred meters away. I tried calling Bajaj Service Bangalore, but all I got was 'call could not be completed' message on my Nokia. Now I was panicking, and tried hard to think. I took off the
Cramster Colt of the bike, and all other luggage, opened the side panels and checked for any visible clues; none were found.
An aged villager saw that I had stopped and has dome problem with my bike. He came and offered help. But due to language problems, all I could make out was that there was a STD-PCO pay-phone a few hundred meters near the next settlement. Since that was my only option, I put back the bike and all the luggage, and pushed the bike. And boy, it was heavy. This was the first time I realized that the Pulsar 220 is a huge bike with a
kerb weight of 150Kg's! By the time I had reached the pay phone, I was sweating like a pig.
I immediately opened up the bike again, and made my first call to Venkats Auto Service, asking to speak to the supervisor. I was put on to Babu, who knew me and my bike as he was the one who I would interact with for all my servicing and other issues. He calmly instructed me what all to do, what all to check. Here is all that was done..
-Open petrol tank lid, check if fuel was visible, shake the bike with lid open, try starting (this step I guess comes from an old line of thought that the fuel tank may generate -ve pressure, preventing easy fuel flow)
-Open the fuel flow pipes, and check if there was proper flow. I had a hard time doing this as I had the bare minimum tools (default provided by bike). Finally I found that the fuel flew perfectly and in volume as the fuel pump primed.
-Remove both the spark plugs, and check for burning, smelling or residual/wet fuel on them. Both looked (dirty black, which is normal) and smelled fine.
All the above took more than an hour, as I had to go forth between the pay-phone and the bike a few meters away. In the meanwhile I had discovered that I could send and receive SMS's. I messaged Venkat, the big boss at Auto Service. As soon as he came to know about the situation, he swung into action, and took over from Babu. He did another round of troubleshooting, and asked me to check the wiring thoroughly. He indicated that its could be an ECU or an EM issue. In the mean while he informed me that he is escalating the situation to Bajaj Service.
I got back to checking the wiring and to my surprise found a wire which had come out of a socket. Putting it back did not help, so perhaps it was not an important one. In the mean while I got an SMS and a call from a Bajaj Service official by the name of Balakrishna. He informed me that they are doing their best to handle the situation, and sounded very concerned. Venkat informed me that a Bajaj dealer from Hasan is being called to check the bike. Balakrishna told me that if the Hassan dealer was not able to help, he would take care of transporting the bike and accommodation for the night (who was going to pay was not clear, but the offer was very comforting).
I continued checking the wiring, and came to small black box under the rear seat. I popped it open, and I was shocked to see that it had a fuse in it which had blown out!! There was also a replacement fuse there, which I quickly replaced, crossed my fingers and booted up.
The engine started with its reassuring note, and came to life. Just then the Bajaj dealer from Hassan arrived with 2 engineers. Although the engine had started, I explained everything to the engineers. They gave the bike a through check, including the wiring. They found out another loose wire, which was dangerously hanging under the battery compartment. It had come off, and was centimeters away from bare metal. He explained that this could have shorted the fuse. He put the wiring securely in place, and did a small test ride. Everything was fine now, and they returned back to Hassan.
This info was relayed back to Venkat and Balakrishna, who again asked me to call him any time in case of further issues. I thanked them all for their patience and help. Since my confidence was all shaken up, and it was almost after sunset, I decided to spend the night at Hassan. First thing I did was I bought replacement fuses.
After staying for the night, I continued my ride the next day. I had to cram up 2 days worth of riding and visits in 1 day. The next day was uneventful, and although a bit shaken up, I finished my ride on schedule.
At the second day after buying the vehicle there was disappointment that continued for one month, there was a fuel pump malfunction, this was replaced by service engineers, after couple of days the vehicle use to shut of without any reason that to in heavy traffic, since i have background knowledge of electronics, i thought that cause could be some breakdown in wiring or some circuit. This was the usual procedure that i was doing when the vehicle did not respond "opened back seat, shake some wires and try again " most of the times it worked. i had complain to service engineer by name majid, he failed to notice that problem even after through check up for 4th time and one fine day vehicle did not started and was late to my office at electronic city. i was frustrated with this problem, i escalated to higher authorities including regional manager and asked him for vehicle replacement, then regional service manager by name balakrishna came to help. They took the vehicle from my house and they called Delphi engineer who suppled ECU and fuel pump kits to bajaj, after his second attempt he found the problem. " It was with sockets one of the pin in the socked was not locked internally there by creating lots of trouble "
