Electrical Problems

[emo]

Ok, I'm new to posting on this forum and new to bike maintenance. First a brief Bio of the bike.

It's a 2005 GS500F with and Engine from a 1990 GS500. My friend bought 05 bike of a guy who had seized the engine from "Redlining it for a couple of hours", the engine seized, he sold the bike. My buddy found a wrecked 90 GS500 with a good engine and swapped it out. After which I purchased the bike from him.

The problem;
I had ridden the bike last fall (08) with few problems, I had to wall charge the battery once but other than that it would start fine and run fine, had one of the display lights go out, that was it.  Over the winter it Got pretty cold here, North Georgia on Lake Lanear, so I wasn't riding it from about beginning of December through most of February. Once the weather started having warmer spells I tried to start up the bike, Engine had trouble turning over, as expected, and battery would drain. Tried that a couple of time while recharging the battery over night and would never start. Since it seemed to be a battery problem, engine would turn at first but slowly then lots of clicking from the starter, I got a new battery and charged it up completely. With the new battery I encountered a new problem. I would turn the ignition to on, close the main circuit, and when I tried to start the bike I'd get one click and all electric would die. Resetting everything and taking the key out and putting it back in did not restore power. I checked the fuse, it was fine. For certainty I put in the spare fuse, recharged the battery and tried again. Same out come. The fuse wasn't being blown, that bike would just go dark after a single click when I tried to start it. My friends suggested it might be a Regulator/rectifier issue, so I bought another one, installed it, made sure the battery was fully charged... Same result...

Now the funny thing about the bike going dark is that it seams to only come back after a not so short amount of time has passed, or if I simply disconnect and reconnect the battery... This doesn't make much sense to me... If I don't do anything to it it and come back like say the next day it will have power again.  Additionally, this bike can be bump started and rides and runs just fine. this is only a starting up problem..

I you have any tips or insight it would be much appreciated.

[bill14224]

I'm not convinced that you have good connections to your new battery.  Poor battery connections would explain your problem perfectly.

[mach1]

 What happens if you use a car or jump starter to kick the bike over?  To me its sounds like you have a short in your narness.

[joshr08]

short or bad ground somewhere and when you try to start it it ark out that bad ground and kills everything.

[The Buddha]

Yea emo ... you're tarzanboy's friend aren't ya.
If so, I have the mirror image, I have the seized up motor and the 90 frame from tarzanboy.
I saw your bike sitting in his back proch as well.
Anyway, I am going with bad ground as well.
You may also  have a start swicth that is not making good contact. But if your lights etc are all going out then no its not the case.
Maybe you have a bad auxillary ground. Maybe.
Cool.
Buddha.

[emo]

I am tarzanboy's friend... And I have not tried to start the bike off a car, didn't know it was possible. I will try that and check the grounding since you guys have seemed to indicate that is a possible problem. Also when I say the bike goes dark... I mean headlight, indicator lights, everything.. like there is no battery in it...

[bill14224]

You may also have a brand new defective battery.  That happened to my dad once.

[The Buddha]

Connection to the battery as well.
Cool.
Buddha.

[mach1]

 if you have a volt meter check your batt when alone if it reads 12v than its charged. leave that meter hooked up to your battery and try to turn it over if it drops more than 2v than its a bad bettery if not your battery is fine. you have to start eliminating parts. you know the reg/rec is new so thats fine the batt is new but your can check if its good. check for shorts, check for loose connectors, check the ignition switch by by-passing it. push start the bike and rev it up see it the volts on the batt climb up if they do than its being charged.

[ATLRIDER]

EMO,

I'm not to far from you. Mall of GA area. 

Sounds like a bad ground or connection to the battery.  A fully charged battery should read something like 12.90 volts if its the type you add water to.  Maintenance free batteries will be a bit over 13V fully charged.  If you suspect a defective battery you can take it to Autozone and have them do a load test on it. 

Good luck.

[emo]

OK I finally had a couple of hours to sit down and work on the bike. I was working without a multimeter so I decided to check as much wiring as I could. Couldn't find anything, took apart and reassembled the starter and kill switches to check for corrosion, they were in great shape, things of that nature.

BUT, I happened across the solution. Since a lot of the posts seemed to indicate a ground problem I especially check the wiring hooked to the negative terminal. Saw nothing but put back in the new battery to try it again.. Well my roommate was just getting home at that point and it's dark out and he spots a spark on the negative terminal as I try to start the bike.... So I take the ground cable off the terminal scrape it with a bottle cap ( had no wire brush) and scrape the negative terminal so both has fresh metal showing, reattach the cable and presto, bike starts immediately.

So, It was nothing more than corrosion on the ground wire and/or on the negative terminal that was causing the problem..... Thanks for all the replies, and yes I feel pretty dumb at this point, but happy cause now I'm ridding' again.

[jetboy287]

if you ever need any help i live about 30 min north of you and i don't mind working on a bike if I'm not at work. I'm no Buddha, i may be able to give you a hand
James

[08GSSteve]

Glad to hear all is well now.  May pay to check also the earth wire attached to the frame of the bike.  Not sure where it is on the GS (am sure others will know) but I had the Same problem with my KLR650 and it was the negative terminal and also the earth wire attached to the frame (in the KLR's case located on frame under fuel tank).

Glad you got it working 

[emo]

I did check that wire and it was clean of corrosion... thanks for the heads up though.

[bill14224]

<---- Takes a bow for nailing the problem the first time.      I knew you didn't have a short because weren't blowing the fuse.

[joshr08]

well i guess i should take a bow as well then since i also said bad ground

[sledge]

First time???   We see this problem AND the solution on an almost weekly basis