Hey everyone
I sold my 06 GS500F to my friend in the spring and we went out today and it just died on him. We were stopped at a light and it just had no power and died. The weird thing is that it won't even turn over. With the key on, theres no headlight on or even the engine oil light. The neutral light was flickering at first but now it wont.
We were able to bump start it, but it will only run if the choke is on a bit.
The battery measures about 12.5 volts. Even with that voltage the lights should work when you turn the key to on right?
*Forgot to mention... when the bike is running with the choke on, the tach doesn't register any rpms. When you turn on the turn signal, the tach will pop up and down with the signals.
Any suggestions?
Step one, given huge electrical weirdness - take the battery out and have it load tested at an auto parts store or motorcycle shop.
My next suspect would be the regulator/rectifier failing dead short or something like that, but check the easy one first.
Check battery voltage when you put a load on it, eg. turn on key/headlight. If its still over 12v its probably OK. Best to get it tested like DoD says. If thats OK, check for a bad earth connection somewhere, thats often the cause of electrical weirdness. If the battery is OK and you have jumper leads handy, try using one lead from the negative terminal of the battery to the engine block and see if that changes anything.
bad battery main thing is KGB ( KNOWN good BATTERY) should be at least 12.8v)
Maybe not exactly the cause but i found something out kinda newbish. I took the gas tank out carefully. i turned the fuel valve to off. Then when i put it back on.. i just twisted the fuel valve all the way to the other side. It kept going so i figured i wasnt doing anything wrong. Well i turned on the motorcycle and it would only idle around 1500 with the choke. Fortunately i remembered that when i turned the fuel valve i turned it all the way to the other side..so the line is not up and down.. so it thought. well that was the only change i did.. so i twisted the fuel valve back to where the line points to the on position and sure enough it worked.. like i said i have no idea whether it pertains to this problem.. but it did have the same issues.
*Update*
Tried turning the ignition to ON, again none of the idiot lights come on and either does the headlight. The battery voltage does not change either, still around 12.5v.
Even if 12.5v isn't enough to start the engine, the starter should at least click and the headlight should turn on when you turn the ignition on.
I hope this isn't something the stealership will have to figure out?
Time to clean all connections and check them with a multimeter.
I had something very strange on my pickup, which I eventually traced to the fact that one of the battery clamps was high-resistance - that also would not start unless bumped, but the headlights came on very dim when stopped - and when they did, there was about 6 volts dropped from the battery post to the battery clamp on the same terminal.
Rip it open, clean it up. Or, turn the key on and check for voltage from the battery terminals (attached to the battery) to the battery clamps (attached to the wires) and you'll have an idea if its similar. Could also be a bad ground (earth) connection - check for voltage from the negative terminal to the frame. Could be a bad ignition switch, too, I guess, but lower on the probability tree.