I'm total garbage with the electrical system, but I will do my best to explain what is going on.

I've been having issues on and off for a few weeks. Once in a while, the power would just die on me. Sometimes my battery would die in a day or two of disuse. Sometimes, there will be no power at all even after charging on the battery tender all night. Occasionally, there would be full power, but when I went to start the engine, there was a single click and the power just went away.

My battery was pretty old at this point, so I decided to get one of the walmart batteries. ES12BS.

I charged that up over night, stuck it in sideways, and everything seemed great. I lost power and had a lot of sputtering when I got near work that morning. After experiencing this more, it seems to be what happens when there is no power at all.

I figured it might not be charging, so I went home, fully charged the battery and went back to see about getting my bike home. After installing the fully charged battery, the bike still had no power. No lights, no clicks, nothing.

Jessie suggested checking the voltage. I plan to get a volt meter later to see what is going on with that. What else can I do? I tried to follow the ground wire on the negative terminal, and I can't really figure out where that is going to see if it is attached correctly.

Any ideas would be awesome. Thanks guys!

Also, another piece of information and a question. When my break lights come on, I can rev the engine normally. Without that, the engine sputters and won't really do anything.

What is the cause of that?

I would think that it is the ground wire that doesn't have a proper connection, I had the same problem except the ground wire to the battery came off.

Quote from: ragecage23 on September 25, 2010, 12:33:46 PM
I would think that it is the ground wire that doesn't have a proper connection, I had the same problem except the ground wire to the battery came off.

Where is the ground supposed to connect? I couldn't quite see where it was going the last time I looked.
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The ground wire get spliced off to ground everything, so it isn't going to go to just one place (at least that's what I'm reading off the wiring schematic http://electricwiringdiagram.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/wiring-diagram-schematic-suzuki-gs500e-motorcycle.jpg). I would think that if you could take off the ground terminal and get some wire to ground just the battery to see if that would help your bike run any better.

not sure if this is the correct way to do it but, I had a electrical problem on my bike that I could not track down. so I disconnected each connector and sprayed some wd40 in it and it fixed my issue and has not had a problem any more.

Main earth runs to engine,think it goes to the rear motor mounts (you might need to remove sprocket cover),also check connections in the headlight (turning the bars might be moving connections).

No, the main ground is bolted to the case (not theengine mount).  It's at the rear of the engine, attached to one of the bolts that point up (head is underneath the motor, can't remember if it is visible).  Basically, since you've found the battery before, follow the large black wire coming off the negative terminal to where it meets the motor.  Make sure there are no cracks in the rubber housing of the wire, and that the connection is tight.

You said that you stuck the battery in "sideways".  Did you mean that the battery is mounted sideways?  If so, you probably lost all the acid or water in the battery and that is why it won't keep a charge.  Is there a bunch of white stuff (corosion) beneath where the battery is mounted?  That would indicate that your battery is leaking.

The bike will run without a battery.  It will idle, but won't rev (as you are experiencing).  To check the battery, make sure that you are checking the voltage when you press the start button.  Even an battery low on water or acid will read 12V+, but as soon as you put a load on the battery, it will drop extensively.  Hope this gets you atarted.

-SPiNNeR-

Have a look at the battery negative terminal lug, there should be two black wires crimped into it, a heavy one and a much smaller one. The smaller one is the return from the reg/rect and it runs back to the battery without a direct connection to the frame.

If this smaller wire becomes loose in the lug or goes open-circuit the bike will run like shaZam!e....... unless the ignition circuit finds another ground.....in this case it looks like its finding it through the brake light which in turn explains why it runs ok when the light is on.

Assuming all the ground connections are clean and secure, when you put the replacement battery in sideways you may have stretched or disturbed the heavy negative lead and the smaller lead has become loose, or pulled out of the lug, or out of the spade connecter thats about 3 inches from the end of it.

Well, it seems to be fixed!

In the end, I am not at all sure what happened. The ground was clean and firmly attached. I went through all the connections, and cleaned the ones that looked at all dirty. None of them were exceptionally dirty. But they are certainly cleaner now. At some point since saturday I blew out the fuse, so I replaced that as well. I'm sure that didn't help with trying to figure out what else was wrong.

Hopefully it will stop cutting out on me now.

Thanks for the help, guys.