I've spent at least an hour searching threads and can't find this exact scenario. My bike is a '98, 21k miles, bone stock except for D&D cans.

I ride home from work the other afternoon, the bike started and ran perfectly. I stop once for about 5 minutes, when I go to restart the bike it acts EXACTLY like a dead battery.....click, click, click but won't crank. Lights are dim. I bump-start it, she fires up perfectly and I continue home. About a mile later, completely dies in 6th gear at about 50mph. So I bump-start it again, she fires right up, runs fine for another 100 yards before it quits again. I bump-start one more time, now she's sputtering a little before dieing one last time. I try bump-starting, no luck and I roll to a stop. The bike is totally electrically dead now......no lights, absolutely nothing.

Battery connections are tight. I replaced the R/R 2.5 years ago, roughly about 8000 miles on it. I take a volt reading across the battery and get only 6V, so I figure the battery is so dead it won't power anything at all (this didn't really make sense to me, but I was trying to rationlize it).

I install a new battery and she fires right up, all guages and lights are working perfectly. I let it idle for a few minutes and I figure all is cool. I get about 1/2 mile down the road and she completely dies again.....totally dead.

That's pretty much where I'm at. I intend to go nuts with Multi-meter tonight and diagnose it, but figured I see if anyone else has experience or heard of this before.

At this point I'm thinking it has to be the ignition switch or kill switch, or a shorted wire somewhere rattling/bouncing off something metal and causing a dead short. I'll check the main fuse of course, but why would it die a few times, restart, then die again. I imagine a fuse is blown or not....nothing in between.

The symptoms don't seem typical of R/R, so I'm ruling that out for now.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance for any advice. I'll post again when I figure out what it is. Hopefully this will help someone in the future.

 

actually it does sound like a bad R/R.. did you put in a finned one when you replaced it, or another of the failure prone ones?

 

the R/R is not charging the battery charg the battery with a charger test votage then start the bike and test votage it should be hier than what you had on the frist reading if the same or less you know you have a charging problem id start with the R/R and there a how to some where on here on puting a differnt R/R on and not the honda since the honda R/R seams to have problems

hope this helps

 

The motor won't crank at all, everythig is dead electrically. The battery is brand new and completely charged, it reads 12.7V when the bike is off (haha.....the only option at this point). The symptoms don't seem like standard R/R to me.

 

the R/R is known to thake stuff out when you turn your key on nothing happens?

if so id check fueses again and unpulg the fuses dont just check them wile there still in also check for power up to the key switch and to the starter button id chace power tell you dont got non

 

Sounds like a bad R/R blew the 30A main fuse..

 

I thought that too, but I can't explain it stalling and starting several times.

 

Sure it does, it's what mine did, and several others if you read accounts of bad R/R.

first it killes the battery (mine by overcharging and cooking a cell) then the weakened battery can't quite keep the bike running.. Then it finally pops your fuse and it's totally dead now.

But even still, it might not be it. So check the fuse (it is probably dead) test your new battery (hopefully not dead) start the bike and check voltage at the battery to see if it goes to ~14.8v at ~5000 rpm. etc. If it goes too high or not high enough, you have your answer. (could also be bad stator, or bad main ground etc.)