As it was the first really good Sunday for ages, like many last week-end I had the urge to give my main bike a good work out.
So I headed off to Wales to avoid the prevailing easterly winds, which play havoc with my lungs.

At Abergav I topped up with 97 octane at the Esso garage. A few miles later there was a hiccup like a misfire. A was well until I opened up the taps a bit more then came what felt like sudden clutch slip, but was probably an injection issue.

By the by, what is it about groups of sports bikes? The leader passed me on an Itchyfanny 1100 or something. Then his mates were all playing catch up. You could tell that they would pass me come hell or high water! Still, they all seemed to miss what looked like a plain clothed traffic unit waiting in the 40 some distance before a favourite bit of biking paradise. Just hope their licences last the summer!

I digress. Later I went via Usk and onto the dual cabbage way back to Monmouth. As I passed a car and gave it some gas, the misfire came back. Then there were 3 loud backfires and the engine stopped. Oh shit! I thought as I coasted to a stop, a long cold wait for a recovery trailer beckons.
Fortunately the engine seemed to be cool with no signs of smoke. There was no fault light and she restarted effortlessly, so it looks like a partially blocked injector or dirty fuel issue. I rode home more gently with no more serious issues, but the misfire on acceleration would return. Any ideas?

hi has the bike had a recent TPS reset and a fuel pressure check would`nt go a miss HTH

No and no, thanks. Only done 645 miles since engine was put back in frame at 41,067 total mileage. Runs fine now apart from the occasional misfire as I give it more gas accelerating. Will do the checks you mention, but also plan to syphon bottom of fuel cell to see what crap comes out. I have been using Yamaha fuel stabiliser, given bikes long storage.

Although it seems odd that it didn't happen for the first 57 miles from home before I filled up again at Abergavenny. I'm wondering if the 97 octane pump I used there had not seen much use for a while and contained water or sludge from base of tank?

I seems that whatever was giving my XB indigestion was digested! Probably at the moment it backfired and stopped (probably water as suggested by pash )

I tried to syphon a litre or so of fuel from the bottom of the tank, which is not easy on an XB given the tortuous bends from the neck of the filler down. I used a soft clear tube inserted gently so as not to upset the 'teabag', or anything else. What came out looked as clean and pure as single malt so it went straight back in.

On Sunday I put in a shot of Miller's injector cleaner and headed east with a friend along the Berkshire downs for the promised sun in the home counties. The XB didn't miss a beat, and was actually pulling very well in top on faster overtakes, helped no doubt by the decoke and cylinder service by Maz.

It still wasn't as warm out as we'd hoped, but we had a good 150 miles riding between tea breaks.

Update on my misfire, which I thought was fuel, but which I now think may have been something else.

I had two longish runs without incident until last Sunday on my way to the Lightning meet when the misfire started again about 15 miles from home. This time the tacho would jump up a notch with each misfire indicating something electrical. It was getting so bad I had to stop and take stock. I stopped at a garage north of Evesham and pulled off the air box to check injector and ignition plugs. Further up the road and it was no better, so I jiggled the wires from the cam box. This instantly made things better.

Riding on to the meeting at last I had a think......as you do, and concluded that all those plugs under the pulley cover had been closed in regular use for 8 years, then left exposed for 8 months while the XB's engine was out. Oxidisation had probably taken it's toll. At the meet I opened and closed all these plugs a few times to wipe the connectors and the problem went away..........I hope!

Result... Another BuellWorld success story...

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08 Specialized Langster