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On the way to the Pure Stodge Rally last night and got caught in a downpour. 25 miles later the bike started cutting out and eventually died. I will say that while sitting alongside the road I kind of remembered that the bike stuttered a little about an hour before I had issues. Anyway, I trailered it back to my parents and began to trouble shoot it but don't know where to start. I ran the battery down trying to start it last night so it is on the charger. I have the tank off but for some reason don't have my spark plug wrench in my pouch. I wondered if there is any way to check for spark without taking out a plug and if there is any way to check to see if the fuel may be contaminated. I know there are lots of issues with the electrical on these bikes, is there a troubleshooting guide to sort some of that out?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

HA! I was thinking about doing that last night too! about 1.5 hrs north for me. rolled bike out, looked at sky, rolled back in. Might still try this weekend, but busy with family stuff.

some things to try:

#1 check for spark!!

-no spark-hall effect sensor (this is COMMON) or coil maybe? is it a dual spark plug bike? it's common for one of the "stick" coils to go out on that. I would put money on one of those two things.

does fuel pump come on ok?

<from my personal failure files: long shot, check that the throttle cables are both seated in their stops above the throttle body.

Remove the ignition lead from a sparkplug insert a screwdriver, etc.... into the sparkplug cap and see if you get any spark .
Does the fuel pump run for a few seconds after you turn the key to the ' ON 'position .
Check the fuses to see if any have failed .
Check fuel line quick disconnects to see if they are still connected .
Check electrical connector on the right side of the fuel tank, for the fuel pump to see if it's still connected .

I was able to pull the plugs and found no spark, the fuel pump does whine when you turn on the key and the disconnects were good. What is the Hall Effect Sensor?

By the way, thank you all for the quick responses. I am trying to get the old girl running so I can get home without a trailer...

By the way, we must be close, I am sitting at my parent's house about an hour and a half south of Iowa City.

The two sensors are riveted to a metal plate at the front of the engine .
http://advwisdom.hogranch.com/Wisdom/oi ... ensors.pdf

No Spark? moneys on the hall effect sensor. see azbmw's post above!

DavidT wrote:By the way, we must be close, I am sitting at my parent's house about an hour and a half south of Iowa City.

Small world. you near Ft Madison, Keokuk? or all the way into missouri? I NEVER see other BMW riders near me.... I am at work IN Mt Pleasant.

good luck with the Repair!!

One thing to check real quick, is the primary and secondary circuits of the ignition coil .
The primary circuit, the two terminals that connect to the bikes electrical system should have around .5 ohms resistance, the secondary circuit, where the two spark plug leads go into, should be around 11-13 k ohms .

I had a similar issue with my bike here in Florida and after I towed it home it started the next day. But after running a few weeks it then died again in good weather and I read all the advice here in the site and took off the fuel tank to look at the wires for the hall effect sensor harness. The harness was all green with the wire coverings all broken and brittle. When I removed the sensor from the front of the bike, the lower harness also had a ton of corrosion and the wires were extremely brittle. I ordered a new one from beemerboneyard and replaced it and the bike has been running better then ever. The entire job took about two hours including the removal and re installation of the fuel tank.

Thanks, sounds like I have plenty to check. I live in Jeff City, but am at my parent's in Kahoka, I guess it is more like two hours south of Iowa City, I was about an hour and a half away when I broke down...

I do have another question, when I called the shop in Iowa City, they said that there were two sensors and that they were around $350 each. They also said that there was no way to bench test them to see if they were bad, they said you had to hook it up to the computer...
So is there more than one, or is there just one that tends to be the problem?

There are two sensors on one mounting plate .

You can test them off of the bike, a test procedure is in the link I provided .

Here is a source for an OEM part, scroll down the page .

http://www.motoelekt.com/ignition.htm

http://www.euromotoelectrics.com/BOSCH- ... n-r277.htm

If it does end up being failed sensors, save the plate, the sensors are available by themselves for $15-20 each .

The sensors are a Honeywell part number 2AV54, but no longer available from Honeywell, Asian replacement parts are available, just do a search for 2AV54 and you should find them with no problem .

I can't thank you guys enough. I pulled the coil and tested it, and am going to do the same with the sensors.

When I inspected my wire harness it was obvious that was cauing my issues. I found the replacement wires to re wire the harness but the new connection plug was an issue as the pins were really small. When I thought about the task at hand I decided tonreplace the entire hall effect sensor. www.beamerboneyard.com has them for $225 for the entire assembly. My local bmw store wanted $450. My bike is a 2002 model with 78,000 miles. I made sure i marked the position of the plate with a scribe to keep the timing the same and i reset the Throttle Position Sensor after installation. Good Luck.

I put it all back together today to trailer it home and await parts. After I put it back together, it fired right up ran great for a few minutes. I turned it off and tried it again after short while, but when I turned on the key, the fuel pump whined for more than the normal time, the tach jumped around a little and the bike refused to start. Does this sound consistent with the bad Hall Effect Sensors?

DavidT, What is the year, model and odometer reading of this bike??

It looks like a wire harness failure at the bends under the headlight.

2002, 30,000 miles. I thought about the wire loom but didn't know how to chase that down.

Just put the new HES on the bike, I now have spark but the bike will still not start.
Any ideas?

Try pulling the fuse on the motronic unit fuse number 5. it is a 10 amp leave out for five minutes then put in a new fuse. this should reset the unit. also check the fuel pump fuse number 6.