Help with a friends bike...

[dalsim]

Hi all,

Long time reader first time poster... First of all I would like to say hi and I am loving this forum. Everyone here seems to be really nice and considerate towards each other which is great. And there is a lot of knowledge going around as well which I hope I can tap into.

A little about me first. I bought my first bike, a gs500k7 (she's a bit of a nudist ) about 4 months ago and she is running great and I am having a great time with her.

Last week I went for a ride with a friend and his bike (1988 crb250 hurricane) started playing up. He thought that it was a bad batch of fuel that he got that morning and I agreed at the time as it was being sluggish and he had to keep the rpm up a bit more at idle then normal. But then about half way through the ride, when we were leaving from a rest stop it would not start with the starter but we were able to roll start it. This kept happening through out the rest of the day, even after adding half a tank of fuel to dilute what we thought was the bad lot he got. But an hour riding later it is still playing up. He thinks that he needs the carbs cleaned which we can do this weekend (my dad is a mechanic so it's not overly a problem) but I think that it is a weak battery as it won't start with the starter but will roll start easily and it runs fine at high rpms but not at idle. (if I am not mistaken the alternator/generator only start producing power at a few rpm).

We did not have time to figure it out on the road and we went our separate ways so that he could get home before dark in case it died again.

I know that this is a forum for the good old GS but I am hoping that you nice people could help out. I am hoping that based on the info that I have given someone can verify what the problem could be so that I can get what is needed for the weekend.

Thanking you all in advanced.

Jeff

P.S. I'll post all about my GS in another topic.

[the mole]

Hard to say without more info/seeing the bike, but I doubt its the battery. Was it running normally once you got the revs up? Could you get a multimeter and check the voltage at different rpm? Does it start OK if you jump it from a car?

[dalsim]

Thanks for the fast reply. Ah same timezone.

I have not had a chance to test the battery or to try a jump start. He lives an hour and a bit away from me but he has not home again till friday so we can't do much till then.

It runs fine when we bring the revs up after starting it. It won't idle low (i don't know how low the revs will get to before it dies). I don't carry jumper leads with me on the bike so I could not rule that out on the day.