No start, then start

Greeting all. I have an electrical puzzle on my '95 R1100RS that I hope to address before I get stranded somewhere.

After running out of gas and getting a refill, I lifted the kickstand, pulled in the clutch, and pressed the start button. It turned over, sputtered, and ran for a second while the fuel lines filled back up with gas. I pressed start again, and nothing. I moved the shut off lever left and right and back to the middle to exercise it, and no turn over. I played with the kickstand and nothing. Then I put the bike in neutral, and repeated the process and it started normally. Later at home, I tested it and now the start button and shut off switches (lever, clutch, etc) work as they should, even when the bike is in gear. This has never happened before (I've logged 18k miles on the bike in the past 2 1/2 years).

My guess is a possible dirty neutral switch in the back of the transmission? Or maybe a faulty kickstand switch? It's intermittent because as I described, it turned over the first time I tried it.

What should I start replacing? Any help is appreciated!

The sidestand switch is easy to check. Turn on the key and move the sidestand up and down. You should hear the fuel pump cycle.

There are two other switches that will keep you from starting, one at the clutch lever and one at the neutral switch at the back of the transmission.

The bike should start under any of the following conditions (assuming sidestand up). The bike will start in neutral with the clutch in or out. You have to see the neutral light though. The "0" in the RID doesn't count. The bike will also start in gear (or in neutral) if the clutch is in.

Unfortunately both of those switches are a little unreliable. If you don't see the green light, the bike doesn't know it's in neutral for starting purposes. If the clutch switch goes bad, it won't start with the clutch in. It's not unheard of to have a bad neutral switch and a bad clutch switch, which will leave you no normal way to start the bike.

The neutral switch is expensive and hard to reach, so most folks ignore it when it goes bad. You can change out the clutch switch, or you can jump it by cutting the wires going to it and wiring them together. I prefer cutting and jumping.

You can also start the bike in a pinch by turning on the key, removing the starter relay, and jumping hole 2 to hole six. Vrooom! Off you go.

You can bypass the clutch switch with a wire, making it think that the lever is always pulled in, but DO NOT bypass the side stand switch.

Dan.

Thanks Jim for the excellent troubleshooting list. Sounds like I need to get familiar with the wiring routing and get ready to bypass some part of it if needed.

Thanks Dan for that bit of advice. I've read stories about the side stand catching. I don't need that!