bike wont turn over
 

so im having an issue with it. firstly last year the bike would randomly cut out while i was turnign it over resetting the clock and trip meters but then when i let off the button and hit it again it would start. after a while the attery stopped holding a charge so i replaced it with a brand new one. this year twice now, first time being not as bad, the bike has cut right out and cranked very slowly and weak like it didnt have enough juice. the first time it fixed itself and my buddy put the battery on his charger when he did my carbs and i put it on mine over night before putting the bike back together when i did the regulator. so today we went for a ride, pushed the bikes hard through the turns and then stopped for a short break. hopped on the bike turn the key, hit the switch, and again a very slow dragged out start, engine turned over once or twice and no juice at all. this happened over and over and over again. and the bastard wouldnt start at all. so we bump started it, luckily we were pulled over near a hill cause with my ass on it this thing is hard to push, lol. so i get her home, pull into the garage, shut it off and try to fire it up again and no juice. my headlights are wired so that the hid only comes on with the hi beam and the low beam controls the angel eye and the led strips, so i fire up the hid, it flickers on and after a few seconds shuts off. looks like there isnt enough juice to power it.

so what the hell could be wrong? its going to my buddys shop to have the battery put onto a load tester. could the stator be on its way out? after we got it started it ran ok, it actually stalled while idling once after getting it running the first time after it sat for a couple minutes but that could be the carbs needing some adjustment. what do you guys think?

gnomes

The standard answer here is going to be the R/R - and it could be. You said you replaced it last year - with what? newer finned OEM? Aftermarket? r1/r6?. In any case I'm sure people wll jump in and give you tips on how to check that.

My thought is a bit different. Perhaps you have an intermitent short to ground somewhere. I know the bike draws some power when off, but should be very little. I get that a bad R/R can do this, I'm just thinking with all the changes you've done maybe there is a bad connection somewhere that could be grounding.

rr was replaced last week actually. once we bumped the bike it ran and i rode it home, when the rr went there was zero power going to the bike and it kept popping the main fuse.

i yanked the battery and it was at 11.75 v. its at my mechanic friends place, he put it under load and it wasnt looking too good but he said he should be able to save the battery and that the rr going last week might have caused the issue. so when i get it back ill hook it up and fire the bike up and see if its charging and go from there. im hoping thats all it is, my second thought is the stator is on its last legs.

also the rr was replaced with an aftermarket unit, finned, thicker than oem and its got a 1 year warranty so im not too worried about that going as ill just replace the bastard again. you guys ever regret modding the things we own, lol.

I'd say it's likely that the R/R took out your battery... It's fairly common for a R/R failure to mistreat the battery a long time before the actual failure...

I'm also fairly sure you have nothing to worry about regarding the stator... If you had, the bike would not run once bump started... To run you need a working stator to produce power and a R/R to regulate it... You do not need a battery other than as a powerbank...

I'm again fairly sure you do have another problem though... And that's sub-par grounding and likely also some corrosion on contacts... Go through all contacts and clean/lube them up with contact spray (NO FUCKING WD40!) and seal them off with vaseline spray...

ok glad to hear it thanks tweety. if thats the case i bet that whore killed my old battery too, oh well this one is brand new and under warranty so i guess itll be getting replaced. a little annoying to deal with but better than replacing anything else.

the contacts on my battery are extremely clean and look brand new so ill clean the ground on the engine from the battery and give the cable ends a once over aswell. thanks again

Well, if you replaced the R/R a week ago, the new and under warranty R/R definitely doesn't need replacing... It should work fine... The damage to the battery was already done by the time the old R/R failed...

Oh BTW by contacts I didn't mean the battery contacts (Or well, they are included)... I mean the other 100 or so contacts on the bike... And there are 3 other ground points... Get cleaning!

Lol I was hoping for 4 or 5 max. Damnit. Hey I have beer and pizza. swing by and give me a hand. You're not that far. Lol

Heh... I'll pay for my own beer and pizza, you pay the plane ticket...;)

Seriously though I think there are about 25 ish connectors spread out over the bike, some of them are sealed by a rubber grommet but most aren't... The "open" ones are fairly susceptible to corrosion... Takes an our tops to go over it... Just look in the service manual to make it easier to find them...

This was part of my nightmare with R/R I copied off another thread.

took the battery out and took it a shop and had it tested. Although it was relatively new, it tested as bad. I then bought a new Yuasa(78.00) and as I was connecting the negative cable, I smelled something burning, then smoke from the R/R, which had recently been replaced with a finned type. By the time I figured it out and removed the cable, the R/R was cooked, i.e., melted. I bought a new R/R from Honda shop(177.00) and hesitantly hooked it up(this time I held the negative cable on the battery with fingr pressure only until I was sure it was not going to cook the R/R.

So, new battery and new R/R and started it up, had friend rev to 5000rpm and checked the charge at battery which read 13.8v indicating that the stator is charging. So far so good. I'll post additional problems if they occur.

Note: new Yuasa- I charged it myself because i didn't want to wait at the Honda shop. according to the Yuasa directions, the protocal for new battery set-up is critical. I bought a new battery recently and know it wasn't prepared correctly and it failed prematurely. So if you buy a new battery and want to make sure it is prepared properly, you may want to do it yourself.

Thanks guys. I've got the shop manual on the computer so ill do some reading today. Tweety ill fedex a log an axe and a lifejacket with some instructions on making a canoe. Is that sufficient? Lol.

Nath. Thanks for the info. I read the same and was worried about hooking it up for the first time. Although my bike mechanic buddy said the regs are pretty tough little things and deal with voltage changes and what not so he said a little spark shouldn't really affect it during hookup. Still to be safe I followed directions I found here. Another thing I learned and similar to what you posted is that the batterys don't come charged and need a really good charge the first time around. I've got the same brand you mention, can't spell it and I'm on my phone so I don't wanna scroll up and loose my spot in the reply, and we added the liquid into it when it arrived and sealed her up but didn't charge enough I guess. So the way my mechanic buddy explained It to me is that the battery will charge with an at home charger but something about not fully charging with it and that you'd need to force it to take more juice to fully charge. Something along those lines. So hopefully he saves the battery for me and I can avoid a 4 hour round trip to replace it. Lol. Ill know today and ill let you guys know how it turns out. And tonite ill go through the connectors and clean them up. Thanks again for all the help.

I thought you weren't supposed to remove the fill canister until it was fully charged. It tells you in the directions, and I'm not sure, but i remember the punching the fill canister into the battery and charging all night. then remove the canister and seal it up.

I don't recall what it said. But someone just followed their own directions. Lol

well my buddy was able to save the battery, he put a load tester on it and she held up no problem. only issue now is when i fire the bike up with the hid off and just the leds and angel eye turned on it sits at 14.8v, and with the hid on it sits at 13.1. but it holds and when i shut the hid off it goes back to 14.8. so im wondering if its normal for this much of a drop to happen or if maybe the stator is starting to get a little weak

Ideally that would be 13.5V-14.5V loaded or unloaded... But obviously your R/R lets more through on idle if the system isn't being loaded... Not ideal as most batteries don't like being charged at above 14 ish volts (Gel type at 14.1-14.2, most AGM's at 14,4-14,5)... It's not good for a long battery life to overvolt them to much... But I wouldn't worry about it... You're supposed to use the HID anyway right?!

However you don't need to worry about your stator... It has absolutely nothing to do with it... It supplies up to 70V or so depending on RPM's... The only part regulating the 12V part is most surprisingly the Regulator (R/R = Rectifier / Regulator)

well i run the hid at night which i havent done yet so its off during the day and only the leds and angel eye are on, also im not sure how much of a difference it makes but with my integrated blinker mirrors they blinkers are no longer on all the time like they used to be so i thought maybe thats raising the voltage a bit.

For the love of fuken christ. I'm about to take a can of gas to this thing. I test the battery today. 14 volts on the nose. Bike fires right up. I ride her to the gym. And on the way there any time I stop I smell burning plastic. So I get to the gym and I can still smell it. No idea what it is. Can't see any thing rubbing. I go in for a quick workout. Get out go for a ride. Still smells a little. I pull up behind a car and its starting to get dim out so I fire up the hid. Except it tells me to fuck myself with an old stick and stays off. I try to cycle it a couple times. Not a peep from it. Wtf. So I ride home before it gets dark just to be safe. Pull into my garage and that stink is still there. I test the battery with the bike on 12.5 v. What the hell. What could possibly be causing this? I'm gonna find out why the hid isn't working. I think maybe the relay killed itself. But I'm wondering what the stink could be. I don't see anything that could have melted. Could the reg be defective? It smells from around the tail but I'm trying to avoid removing it again cause its such a huge pain in the ass to get off

Well the hid works again. The connector pulled itself out of the headlight plug. I guess I had it a litte too tight and the big twins vibratoion yeanked it out. Sher was tight behind the cluster. But still no idea on the stink or the voltage drop.

Highest odds on the battery... R/R is close second...

lol, i say it might catch fire before we find out, haha. were testing the stator tonite just to eliminate it. the damn reg is brand new, im gonna email the guy i might replace it as its under warranty, im not sure if its causing the stink but the stink wasnt there till it showed up, lol

stator shows 80v, my mechanic buddy came by, the reg blew, i pulled it out in literally 2 pieces, so yeah, thats exciting. that stink has filled the garage and the bike permanently i think

febreeze...:shock:

You could wire in a glade air freshener. One would be plenty.:eek:

Have you looked in the knowledge base? Reg Rec is just a couple from the top. I'm going to switch out to a R1/R6 Reg rec soon.

Tweety what are you running on your bike?

I'm running a R1 R/R... Have been since my brand new OEM replacement blew up killing my battery (my new replacement battery, since the last R/R undercharged it to death...) and gauge cluster plus part of the wiring after only 3 months... At that point I decided I'd never use a Honda R/R again...

lol well id bath the bike in it but it might kill something else. lol. my reg was a week old so its going back under warranty. on a positive note we know the stator is fine, shows 80 volts across the board so thats good to know, those damn french canadians, haha real funny, here you go heres your reg back send me one that works, lol. if the next one pops ill go to an r1 unit :)

I love the smell of anything bike related; gasoline, kerssene, oil, exhaust, triflon spray (a favorite), solder, welding flux, new tires, you name it. Brings back my best memories. Two exceptions: high VOC brake cleaner, and my brother's nasty gas (mine is ok).

JB

Nice huh

looks hauntingly familiar. as I stated above, I installed two batteries and two RRs before success. First battery Advance Auto-not properly charged; First RR rebuilt from Ricks. Second Battery Yuasa-charged acc to instructions;Second RR-Honda. The second time I installed the battery, I hooked up the grnd first, then held the hot on snugly with my fingers while i watched, listened and smelled for the ominous melt down that thankfully didn't occur. happy trails, or maybe I should say happy trials.:D

Haha don't jinx it or you're gonna have to come here and install the next one. Lol. I did the same with this one. Put it on. Held it. Didn't smell anything. Didn't see any sparks. Didn't hear anything. So I proceeded to connect it. So I'm hoping it was just the luck of the draw and I got a unit built on a friday at closing time. Lol. But the companys pretty good about things. They sent me a ups shipping label and everything its just a pita to fill out the paper work. One question on there asks if the resistance was checked and what the readings were. I said there was no need to. It smoked a little. Smelled bad and started to brown my wiring harness. Oh and it came out in 3 pieces so I'm gonna go ahead and assume its bad. Lol. Chick on the phone was cool. So we'll see how long the turn around time is on this. I'm shipping it this morning. So let's say by tuesday they get it. And let's see how long before a new one arrives.

hahaha. Yeah. if it came out in 3 pieces, I'd say that it has definately "departed", both literally and figuratively. hahaha. Hey we gotta laugh, huh, or we might have to hurt something.

I couldn't wait for the turn around and didn't like the uncertainty, so I bought a new one @177 from big red and after 2 weeks, then I received my spare from Ricks.

well ive got 2 race quads in the garage so if it comes down to it ill ride those. infact i took my honda out yesterday and had a blast on it, i tell ya though, she doesnt stop as good as my bike does haha, launched her down an 8 foot really steep drop off that we ride up and down on a flat section of path, i was at the limiter in 5th, with my regear its around 55 mph, and saw it last second, hammered the brakes, realized it wasnt in the card, and got back into her and gently glided down a couple feet of the ground till i hit the bottom section of trail. infact that happened a few times yesterday, got on the brakes late and theyre no where near as good as the bike, lol