I just got this bike, and the guy left it parked in a shed for a months or 2 with out starting etc. It took it a bit to start up (it was freezing out so no wonder), anyhow it was backfiring through exhaust etc and would die once chock was off. However the guy really did not give it much time to warm up at first(and flooded it). So after pulling the plugs and seeing they where shot he bought new ones, the bike idled and ran but every now an then backfired and take the throttle a bit to respond.
He also jumped it with a running car, i was told that's a no no. I got the back home and I'm almost positive the battery is shot. I jumped it with a extra car battery i had(not in a car), after i took the jumper cable off the bike battery i noticed the lights flickering? It also would bog when giving throttle.
I hooked the car battery back up to it and left it, it seemed to idle and throttle up etc with out bogging?
Could this just be the result of a bad battery?
I'm having the battery tested in the morning, but thought i would go ahead and post just for advice.
Hmmmm... Interesting why it bogs down when you give it throttle, that should be when the charging system (stator/reg rect) is working at its best. That makes me think that your regulator rectifier could be bad, but even so, giving it throttle should temporarily keep it alive not kill it. The fact that the throttle kills it almost makes me suspect bad stator. Make sure and post your battery test results so we can come up with some other thoughts.
I'll diffidently post results of battery test tomorrow afternoon. If its bad I'm picking up a new one since I'm already there at the parts store.
Thats good. Do you have a multi-meter?
Welcome to the forum by the way! Where are you from?
The bike was probably bogging because it was cold. The GS needs a bit of choke and a few mins to warm up in cold weather. Especially if it hasn't been started in awhile. Battery was probably had it before he jumped it. They don't like going flat.
Thanks for replies.
Yes I have a multi-meter, but i kind of question it since it does not work well Picking a new one up today also.
I'm heading to parts house now to have battery tested, update to follow.
I took it into the parts store and they hooked it up to a portable thing and said it was showing "good". I find it hard to believe with the acid levels being around the "low" mark, but who know's.
I brought it home and hooked the meter to it and showed it had 15.3. I don't have a charger, but do have one of those "floating" maintainers things, and hooked it up to the battery. It showed 24.3 with that thing hooked to it. I'm going to see if one of my buddy's have a battery charger to charge the battery fully as my floater charger don't seem to charge it (guess that's why its a maintainer lol).
Anyhow what numbers should i be seeing when testing these batteries?
If your reading 15.3 on your battery that is very well fully charged. The most I've ever read from a fully charged battery is 14.9V. By maintainer do you mean trickle charger? If you leave that on long enough, should charge the battery, that's all i use. I would suggest letting it fully warm up with it hooked to a car battery and check the ac output from the stator at around 5k rpm. Should read ~ 75V from each yellow wire. Make sure your on ac.
Yeah, trickle charger (or floater some call it).
I borrowed a buddy's charger and left it for few hours when i ran to town, it showed charged when i got home (green light). Battery was showing 24.2volt (i think my meter is messed up, show's 30.9 on charge). Anyhow took it out and put it in bike, hit the start and click click click click click. Meter on battery showed 24volts.... So I'm like "oh no starter went bad!".. So i pull the truck battery out and sit it beside bike, hooked jumper cable to it and bike battery and bike fired right up.
Could the battery have a bad cell in it or something. I know the girl in parts store said it was "showing good", but maybe she was not reading that tester right(and I'm not saying that cause she was a girl, just they don't always hire the brightest automotive people).
Women... Haha Jkin. ;) but that is very possible i feel like you have your meter set wrong or something, unless your meter is broken, but it shouldn't really read anything if that's the case. You might just need a new battery. How long will it run on the truck battery before draining that or dying?
I don't let it run long set up like that. Longest i let it run hooked to truck battery was maybe 3 minutes. It run great, throttle works great hooked to truck batter, but once you unhook the truck battery from bike battery it starts idling weird and lights flicker.
I'm leaving the battery on the charger all night and will try it again in the morning. I just check it and it as not got hot from charging. The charger is suppose to keep it charged with out over charging.
It was the battery after all.
I took it to a different parts house (autozone) and guy said the're machine would take about 50 minutes to charge be for it would say bad or good.
I come back and guy said the battery wont even take charge.. I wont name the other parts house who said it was "good" but the're color is green :wink:
Thanks for all the help!
same thing happened to me about a month ago and i tried the same thing you did (hooking up to car) in the end I got a new battery and voala...but glad you found the problem if I had seen your post my advice would have been to pick up a new one but since youve done that already happy riding :cheers:
Congrats, I'm glad it wasn't something more complicated and you are back to riding.
Ride safe! :thumb:
Thanks.
Cant wait until this weekend, will be in the high 50s possibly 60 :woohoo:
Where do you reside?? Lol
Kentucky, where mother nature loves playing pranks on us with the weather. Was 61 Monday, and 41 today :dunno_black:
Ha! Just lower your scale a bit and you have IL weather. 51 yesterday and 12 hours later snowing in the 20s with wind chills below 0!
I think it was last year bout this time tho, we literally had several inches of snow fall and the next day it reached 70... Sickening, really...
- Bboy
wow that's crazy. I'll be happy when summer gets here, however we been pretty lucky with not getting snow this winter knock on wood. Just some dusting's and a freezing rain that cover everything in ice (which may happen again Thursday).
Haha i guess were lucky to be from Seattle, where the temp is pretty constant but we just get rained on randomly... :cry:
Wayne, how far are you from OH? In NKY perhaps?
I live outside Bowling Green, Ky. So that's about 5-6 hours.