Bike not starting in the morning (battery?)

[brett]

So the past couple mornings the GS has not wanted to start. Yesterday morning I tried the starter a few times and eventually had to kickstart it. It started up fine at lunch and on the way home, so I thought it was an isolated problem. This morning the same thing happened, although after a few tries with the starter, I noticed that the starter seemed much weaker on each progressive try. Once again, kickstarting worked eventually. It's gotten colder around here recently, and my guess is that leaving the cold bike alone for 12+ hours during the evening is when something goes wrong with the battery, especially since after kickstarting and riding in to work, it seems to hold a charge well. I suppose it could also be something else that I can't think of. Anyone got any clues or suggestions before I go buy a new battery?

On a related note, what's the trick to popping off the seat without the lock? The lock actually fell out and I haven't gotten around to replacing it.

[The Buddha]

Your GS has a kick starter ...  In that case ... you may want to push down the decompression guage.
And what rear set is locked ... I thought it has 2 bolts ...
Cool.
Srinath.

[LPC2104]

How long is your commute?

[brett]

Err, sorry, not kickstarting, pushing and popping the clutch. And rear set was a typo for rear seat, then I realized that rear seat is kinda redundant. Sorry, it was a rough morning (GS and other reasons).

My commute is 20-30 minutes, which I assume is long enough to recharge the battery.

[FearedGS500]

maybe with it getting that cold your battery just gets to cold and losses its charge ? do you have a way to maybe try and keep it warm .. maybe an old heating blanket and an outlet ?

[The Buddha]

20 to 30 mins is plenty to charge battery ... but make sure you're getting voltage at the battery ... check with it running and a decent battery ... your problem may be the alternator ... but hope not ... Then also ... hope you dont have goats ... Now is the bike motor sorta vibrating more and feeling more shaky than usual ...
Cool.
Srinath.

[brett]

Yes, the bike has been vibrating more than usual. That's on my list of things to do, but what kind of problem could that be causing?

As for the alternator, my thought was that since the battery recharges well on my way to work, the alternator should be fine.

[ducati_nolan]

Most likely it's your battery. Check your battery acid levels and add water if required. If the bike makes arround 14volts at 5000 rpm then your alternator is fine, but sometimes it won't register that if the battery is shot. Volt meters are like $10 so pick one up and check it.

The fact that it will start back up after a long ride and not sitting too long, indicates that the alt/gen should be okay.

I'm not fammiliar with gouts, but it sounds bad and with your vibration, you should look into it.
Good luck 

[brett]

I'm sorry, but what's goats/gouts?

[scratch]

It is this: http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=10798.0
Very bad.  I hope you don't have it.  Re-charge the battery, it's hopefully just low on fluid and juice (charge).

[brett]

So I checked and the water/acid levels were all low. I filled them up with some distilled water, rode for about 20 minutes, and now I wait anxiously to see how it goes tomorrow.

[sanjay]

I had similar issues, and it was simply that the battery was old.  It'd charge up ok, so if I bumpstarted and went to the post office or something and came back within a few hours or so, it'd be fine.  But long term (24 hrs or more) and it wouldn't crank more than few times before it was dead.  Also, as it got colder outside, it got harder b/c the engine needs more cranks to start (at least for my bike).

You might want to look at your battery plates.  Take off the covers like you're going to add water and look at the plates inside.  If they look like this - http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=24116.0 - you need a new battery.

Also, as far as the seat goes, mine is the same way.  There's a cable that runs down from the latch that is pulled by the lock, but since the lock was broken, the previous owner just had the cable poking below the plastic.  A little tug on it and the seat opens up.

[brett]

Wahoo!! It started up perfectly this morning. Thanks for the help!