A mate of mine recently bought the above bike. It ran fine for a few weeks until he washed it and now it won't turn over. We put the battery on the optimizer over night and tried it the next morning. According to the optimiser the battery is ok, but all we got was a click from the solenoid and the ignition lights dimming. We replaced the battery with another one which had also been on a optimiser over night and seemed good. Connected up and it started first time but ran a bit rough and was hard to keep it at idle. Tried to restart it and all we got was the solenoid clicking again but this time clicking rapidly and again all the ignition lights dimming down. We managed to bump start it but again it was running rough and struggling to idel. I can't understand how one start could drain the battery down that fast unless both batteries are duds. I have checked over all the wiring I can see but everything seems ok. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks
Haydn

HI Not sure if this will help could i ask have u done an earth leakage test please ?

No I haven't, tbh when it comes to electrics we both have limited knowledge. I was going to try and get it running again and see what voltage was being put back into the battery.

Any help on the earthing would be appreciated

Thanks

hi a leak test can be done as follows ignition turned off ,remove negative cable off batt the black one, set a multi meter to milliamps scale connect neg probe on meter and to battery negative and positive probe on meter to disconnected negative lead, the reading should be around 0.1mA if its much over chance is there is ashort in the system some where. hope this helps a bit faults like this can be very much a pain just gone through sumit similar on me super 4 try and think if can advise on ought else if u can tell me any more will try best to advise sure some other users will be able to help to regards craig just an extra note i have an opti mate charger and it was tellin me my batt was but lookin at the cells it was clearly buggerd,also may be worth checkin the condition of the kill switch it may be shortin out water is abugger when it gets in to places it dont belong .A local garage may be able to do a drop test to see if your batts are ok with hand held discharge meter.

Thanks that's a lot of help. As soon as the weather clears up we will have a go at that. I also noticed that the copper pins had gone green in the end of the optimate lead which is still on the battery. If there is a short in this lead could that cause this problem. It's a standard optimate lead with the inline fuse.

The thing that has baffled us the most is that it was running fine and yesterday we managed to bump it so the starter isn't jammed, the solenoid (I think) is clicking next to the battery, but a fresh battery only gave us one start and a 1 min run then seemed flat again. I will try and give you as much info as I can as we investigate.

Thanks again!

Ok, the bike had been on the optimate for 2 days but still wouldn't start. The starter motor cranked For a few seconds before the clicking solenoid returned. Both batteries at rest are reading between 12.3v and 12.8v with 5A. We did the earth leakage test and 0.00- 0.01. We managed to bump the bike and it ran for a few minutes before dying. Also when trying to start the volts dropped to 1-2v and the amps the same? Whilst it was running we checked the battery and 13.5v was going in. Now we just get the clicking solenoid again.

It seems the starter is ok as we got the engine cranking for a few seconds.

If 13.5v when running is ok? Then the magneto is ok?

Going to put a brand new battery on it tomorrow so at least we can know for sure if we have two dudd batteries.

Any help will be appreciated

Cheers

Goodevening this is a puzzin one ,does sound like a knackerd batt 13.5 is ok for chargin , sounds like gennys ok u could carry out a test on the three out put wires genny disconnected basicly put a meter on say x2k ohms and put one probe on one wire and another on the other two wires then repeate on other two noteing the readings the manual should have the specs or make my attempt to explain better, u can repeat the test and see if any of the coils are shorted to earth , one probe one a genny wire and another one to earth there should be no countinuity i belive if there is chance a coil is down in genny ,but does not sound like it is due to wat u say about the volt readin when cranking new batt is a good place to start. Could i ask was the bike in regular use until prob started an did it do any other odd things like misfire before probs to date? thx c

Thanks again,

Yes the bike was stood for 18 months with the first battery and tbh the second one I charged up has been off a bike for a while so they could both be scrap tbh.

If we have no luck with the new battery tomorrow then ill start doing the checks you have mentioned. The bike didn't have any problems before. Just wouldn't start out of the blue. He did wash it but I'm starting to think that is a coincidence. The kill switch looks in good order and is operating as it should.

I will update tomorrow

Thanks
Haydn

HI was begining to think if bike has been stood do u think it may be a combiation of small things from preventing it running lke dirty carbs maybe worth flushing the float bowls out if it has been stood, also check the coil contacts for good connection may be dirty cheers c

Thanks

That's exactly what we thought. The battery has sorted the turning over problem. But the bike will still only run rough for about 2 minutes. Once it cuts out it will not restart for at least half an hour. You can keep it going but you have to work hard and hold it around 7k rpm. Seemed likeit was using the fuel up out of the bowls and then struggling. So took the fuel pipe off the fuel tap, cranked the engine and fuel came out of the tap so the diaphragm must be ok. A local mechanic has stripped the carbs and cleaned them but it has made no difference. That's where we are at the moment. The bike was running fine, now it's far from it.