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Engine shut down after crash?

5K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  H3OIndra  
#1 ·
A couple of weekends ago I was on a 3 day moto trip to Sequoia national park. It was a great trip, with beautiful scenery and roads but...I layed the Z down. I chalk it up to several different factors...a worn tire, uneven pavement, fatigue, and trying to beat the sunset to our destination for the night. Coming around a corner at about 35-40 I hit some uneven pavement and the back tire started to slide out. I tried to adjust by braking, which stood the bike up and stopped the slide, but moved her out to the edge of the turn where there was a nice patch of gravel waiting for me. As soon as my tires hit the gravel it was over. I think I had slowed to about 25 mph by the time I had laid the bike down and had good gear on so I only came away with some scuffed leathers, bruised knees (knee protection is now on my shopping list), and a bruised ego. The bike ended up face down in a ditch and shut herself off. My buddy and I were able to push it out of the ditch and after an examination determined that the damage seemed to be cosmetic - a lot of scratches, a broken mirror and a dented tank, but she wouldn't start. I had made it through the accident with a firm warning from the powers that be.

While trying to decide if it was time to call AAA to tow her to the closest town we started thinking that the bike may have a safety shutoff mechanism and that if we disconnected the battery and reconnected it we might reset whatever was going on (hey, we were shooting blind in the dark and trying to get home.) While I had the seat off before disconnecting the battery I checked the ignition fuse. It was blown, swapped it with the spare, and the bike started right up. I road it to the hotel that night and road a couple hundred miles home the next day without any problems. I'm setting out tomorrow morning to fix up some of the cosmetic damage. My question to the group is...do you think I have an abnormal short I need to search for or did Kawasaki build in a safety mechanism to blow a fuse and shut the bike down if the bike is layed down. (I don't see why they would build it to blow a fuse but I guess I'm hoping that it isn't something worse.)

Thanks for your input.
 
#2 ·
The bike does have a safety switch known as the tip-over sensor, but it just kills power going to the ignition. The fuse should not blow from just falling over or wrecking. For that fuse to blow there would have to be a short some where as you figured, but I am thinking in the tumble two wires touched, but I can't think off the top of my head which ones to check.

I speak from experience having a bad track experience where the Z flipped when it hit the grass. All I had to do to get going was to turn the key off and back on and she fired right back up.
 
#4 ·
Good to hear you're ok! I, too, just had a crash recently. I feel terribly sore, but other than that I'm fine. I had trouble starting my bike up after the crash, too. I turned the key off and on, but what I think was the real problem was that it was still in gear. My nerves were shot and a guy who stopped to help me reminded me to check. The bike started back up and seemed to drive just fine. All the damage was on the left side of my bike and like yours, it was mostly cosmetic.

Which side did you lay yours down on?
 
#6 ·
Thanks for the info everyone. I started repairs today and didn't find a cause for the blown fuse but it hasn't done it again so I'm leaning towards wires rubbing when it went down and it's back to being fine again. The Z flipped from one side to the other when it went in to the ditch so unfortunately I got cosmetic damage on both sides to repair but I'm not complaining, it could have been much worse.