Vehicle suddenly shuts off while riding

Question

I've been an owner of pulsar NS200 2017 model for about 1.5 years now , recently when I was commuting in my city at around 30kmph , the bike began to lose power and shut off . I pulled over and after alternating between the ON and the RESERVE petrolcock and tilting and shaking the bike a little bit and trying to start it for a few minutes finally it started but after about 2-3 kms the same happened.I took it to the service center of Bajaj and the guy said there was some debris in the fuel line and has cleaned , the bike was now ok and its been ok for a week now until yesterday when I was on a highway at night at 100kmph when the same problem repeated and had a periolius journey . Can somebody please tell me what the problem could be??

Also I observed yesterday that sometimes my bike shut off suddenly and some times started losing power and then stalled. ( BTW my radiator fan never switched on yesterday during an high speed journey) . Could this be an combined issue of overheating and fuel delivery problem?

Answer 1

In general, if you don't have a running engine, you're usually missing air, fuel, compression or spark.

If it started to gradually lose power, I would say it's nearly guaranteed to be a fuel delivery problem. Electrical problems such as no spark usually happen immediately, you lose 100% of power when the issue happens, although in principle moisture can sometimes cause weak spark and weak power. An old air filter would just cut let's say 10% of your power all the time, not anything like the problem you describe.

Your motorcycle, having a carburetor, is a relatively simple device. Not many sensors whose functioning is critical to have it running.

Why do you think your bike is overheating? Is there any demonstrated evidence of that? If it overheats, it could cause less compression (until you replace the head gasket). I would put my money on the fuel delivery problem. If you're riding at high speed, the radiator fan might not be needed at all. At least on cars it usually turns on only if nothing else helps, usually the temperature is regulated by a thermostat.

Can you see the temperature of the engine on a gauge? If the gauge is working and it's not on red, you shouldn't be overheating.