Starting Problem

[homermacleod]

For the past two months, my bike has been having problems starting (2006 Busa).

It starts fine in the morning, but when I get to work, if I turn it off and try starting it back up it clicks once, and stops. If I hold the ignition button more then two seconds after it stops, the lights on the instrument cluster go off and the time gets reset back to 12. After it cools down, the bike starts fine again.

This morning, I drove it to work and when I tried to start it 10 minutes after shutting it off, it tried to turn the starter and stopped again. The lights on the instrument panel went out again. This time, the lights would not come on again. I left it alone and came back an hour later and it will not power up when I turn the key to the on position.

I figured that the battery is dead and had a coworker take me home to get my battery tender to charge the battery. When I plugged it in,
the green light stays on steady (battery is fully charged).

Does anyone have any ideas on what the problem could be?

-Chris

 

[majestic12]

Battery would be my first guess.

How old is your battery, is it a maintance free or can you check the electrolyte (acid) level?

From personal experience the battery can take enough of a charge to tell a battery tender it is ok but not have enough amps to run the starter and electronics.

Have you had it load tested?

tapatalk - on my HTC ERIS rooted with cyanogen mod 7

 

[IG.]

Batteries don't go bad after a ride just to be perfectly OK the next morning.

First, I would suspect a poor connection at your battery terminals or elsewhere in the starter circuit. When the bike is cold, the connection is good enough to provide a current (about 80 Amps) to turn the starter. When the bike gets hot, the connection gets worse creating effectively an extra resistance in the starting circuit - as a result the starter is barely turning, or not able to turn at all.

Make sure your battery terminals are clean, and tighten those screws good. If they are barely tight, that could be your problem. If the bike is kept outdoors humidity/heat/cold will degrade all electrical connections. While in electronic circuits an additional small electrical resistance is insignificant, in power transmission circuits it is very critical.

Also, don't hold that button for long - you will burn something - if you gave it a couple of seconds and nothing is going on there is no point to keep holding it. Just because the starter doesn't turn, it doesn't mean it doesn't draw a pretty good current. As a matter of fact if an electrical motor doesn't turn it exibits less resistance to the source of electricity - as a result a lot more current will go through it, and this will heat things up pretty good. It's like your electrical drill - if it gets stuck and you keep supplying the power, it is likely to burn in a few seconds. Starter motors are designed to take some heat for a few seconds, but not longer than that.

 

[lonner]

as above and also a sign your reg is on the way out or bad connection.

check your volts with it running and see if its 14v or above

 

[lonner]

as above and also a sign your reg is on the way out or bad connection.

check your volts with it running and see if its 14v or above

this might be useful for a few pointers and how too's Motorcycle Repair Course

 

[homermacleod]

Thanks for the information.

I took the battery to Autozone 2 weeks ago and they said that the battery was fine.

When I got home today, I took the bike apart and checked the fuses and everything was good, but the bike would not power on (the guages would not even light up).

Someone suggested trying to jump the bike, so I hooked it up to the car (without the car running) and she started up fine. It even stayed running when I disconnected the jumper cables from the bike. Once I shut the engine off, the it would not start again.

I replaced the battery and took it for a nice ride. Now everything is fine. When the bike is hot, I can shut it off and it starts up immediately.

Thanks again for the info.

-Chris