Died while riding, wouldnt start back up

[kudjan89]

Hey everyone,

Its been a while since ive been on here, just got the bike back out and got it all set up for the summer. New paint job, looks good. But anyway i was rididng today, i left work, it started with no problems and took off down the road. After about 15 miles i was at a light andthe bike chugged and died so i pulled it off to the side of the road thinking i ran out of gas on the main and was going to switch it over to the reserve because that has happened to me before. Well i did that and it was out of gas but when i went to start the bike it acted like the battery was dead. Just a couple slow turns and then clicking. So my question to you guys is what do you think the culprit is, could the battery go dead that sudden, or could it be the stator. But also i had my dad come get me and we decided to jump it before loading it up and see what that would do. It started and stayed running all the way to his house but still will not start on the battery. Becasue it stayed running it makes me think its the battery but ive never seen a battery go bad under those circumstances.

Any input is greatyl appreciated, thanks a lot guys!!

-Matt

[Nunya_Binnez]

I would carefully inspect the battery cable connections to make sure they are clean and secure. It's very possible that they just aren't making a good connection.

My

NDB

[taggy]

i recon battery, had it happen on my sv. was it on charge while it stood? if not it prob needs a good charge or replacing depending on how far gone it is! suppose it could be the charging circuit in the bike, but it ran on it's own after jumping so probably isn't as a jump wouldn't put enough juice in it to charge it. would it?

[kudjan89]

Ya it did run on its own after i jumped it and ran fine all the way til i shut it off then it wouldnt start again. I have just never seen a battery go bad so suddenly like that

[DonTZ125]

Chugging to a halt while stopped is also a sign of a bad battery; the charging system isn't running fast enough to feed the ignition.

Inspect the battery for fluid levels, static (switched off) voltage, cleanliness and security of terminals and connections. Make sure there's no mung across the top shorting out the terminals.

[kudjan89]

well i just got home and barely made it, died again while pulling into my driveway, so i pushed it to the garage and pulled out my DVOM and took a reading of the battery, it read 10.7-10.8 volts, now i know thats not fully charged. (BTW i am a certified mechanic, elecrical just isnt my area of expertise, and i mostly work on cars just now getting familiarized with bikes ) but that should be more then enough to at least crank the engine slowly, or is that considered dead because of the low CCA these batteries have? Now i didnt get a chance to test it while running cuz obviously it didn't make it long enough for me to do so. I am going to take the battery to work tomorrow and charge it and load test it and see what that turns up and if that turns out good then i am going to take the bike into work and start testing the charging system and start looking over wires.

Thanks for all the help so far guys, its great to know there is a place i can come to get others input, even tho i am a mechanic im young and ill be the first to tell you i am far from knowing everything , and working with diffrent things teaches you diffrent things!

Thanks again
-Matt

[lawmer]

well i just got home and barely made it, died again while pulling into my driveway, so i pushed it to the garage and pulled out my DVOM and took a reading of the battery, it read 10.7-10.8 volts, now i know thats not fully charged. (BTW i am a certified mechanic, elecrical just isnt my area of expertise, and i mostly work on cars just now getting familiarized with bikes ) but that should be more then enough to at least crank the engine slowly, or is that considered dead because of the low CCA these batteries have? Now i didnt get a chance to test it while running cuz obviously it didn't make it long enough for me to do so. I am going to take the battery to work tomorrow and charge it and load test it and see what that turns up and if that turns out good then i am going to take the bike into work and start testing the charging system and start looking over wires.

Thanks for all the help so far guys, its great to know there is a place i can come to get others input, even tho i am a mechanic im young and ill be the first to tell you i am far from knowing everything , and working with diffrent things teaches you diffrent things!

Thanks again
-Matt

Well spotted, these 12 amp hour batteries are around 150 CCA

An excellent flow chart that may help you out is available in the WIKI. Just in case you haven't seen it here's the link http://fzronline.com/wiki/doku.php?id=v ... flow_chart

There is one typo in the flow chart, which has confused other's in the past in regards to testing the stators resistance. Where it says

"Turn off the bike, and check the resistance between all possible combinations of 2 white wires"

That should read,

"Turn off the bike, and check the resistance between all possible combinations of 3 white wires"

Some have mistaken the 2 wires for the pick up coil and therefore got a very different reading.

If everything checks out except for the stator, and I mean as the author of the flow chart intended (checking the 3 white wires @ the VRR end of the harness). There's a 3 pin white connector under the tank that is fairly commonly known to overheat, resulting in High resistance when testing the stators resistance.

You also don't state the year of your bike, IF you have the old 4 pin VRR get rid of it and upgrade to the safer 5 pin VRR. If you have already have the safer 5 Pin version my apologies.

The very best of luck
Mal.

[kudjan89]

thank you i will take a look at that, and i believe i have the 4 pin connector, it is a 91.

[lawmer]

thank you i will take a look at that, and i believe i have the 4 pin connector, it is a 91.

Take a look here http://fzronline.com/wiki/doku.php?id=r ... conversion

It's always a pleasure to help out a fellow true professional.

The best of luck.
Mal.

[kilika2]

10s is still low. This is coming from a guy who spent loads of hours trying to figure out why I had to jump my bike every other day. Turned out a cheap battery wasn't the way to go. :/ 100 dollars says after a good 8-10 hour charge you will be good as gold. Make sure to do the test at 3k after you get her running. It would be a good time to start thinking about doing the VR swap to a newer style as well. Less faulty. good luck.

Chris.

[lawmer]

Hello Chris, how are you doing, I hope your well.

If anyone doesn't know, Chris is a stand up genuine guy, always happy to help

[kudjan89]

So I took the battery to work and charged it up and it held a 12.6 v charge, but when I load tested it, it said that it only had 68 available cca. So there is where my issue would lie . So looks like a new battery should do the trick, I also tested the fluid with a hydrometer and that actually checked out ok but what I noticed was a heavy buildup on the plates inside the battery, I guess that's what I get for having to leave it stored in the cold all winter, the reason for that was I bought a house and had to put the bike and everything I owned into a storage unit while i moved

[kudjan89]

Well I finally got to tinkering around with the bike. I charged the battery and did some more testing and come to find out that our machine was not working properly. So it starts now, but I checked the battery while it was running and it's only getting around 11.8 v. That brings me to the Vrr and the stator, I checked the connections coming into the VRr and that showed about 32-35 ac volts coming into the Vrr and I noticed the plug was kind of melted. Which thing do you guys think might be bad? I don't want to spend all that money on a new stator and not have that be the problem. Does anyone know what the resistance should be in the Vrr?

Thanks guys I just really suck with this electrical stuff
-Matt

[DonTZ125]

If you have 30-ish vac across each of the three pairings of white wires, your VRR has failed low. If any pair gives less than 30, you have a bad stator winding. The melted plug is never a good sign; check the security and condition of the ground wire at the battery and at the engine. You certainly want to replace both the connector and VRR.

Ambulance chaser alert - I sell harnesses and pigtails to make upgrading to the newer 6-pin design easier. Since your connector is damaged, I would recommend cutting it off and splicing in a pigtail.

[ramster]

If you have 30-ish vac across each of the three pairings of white wires, your VRR has failed low. If any pair gives less than 30, you have a bad stator winding.

Wrong.

The melted plug is never a good sign; check the security and condition of the ground wire at the battery and at the engine. You certainly want to replace both the connector and VRR.

Correct.

Well I finally got to tinkering around with the bike. I charged the battery and did some more testing and come to find out that our machine was not working properly. So it starts now, but I checked the battery while it was running and it's only getting around 11.8 v. That brings me to the Vrr and the stator, I checked the connections coming into the VRr and that showed about 32-35 ac volts coming into the Vrr and I noticed the plug was kind of melted. Which thing do you guys think might be bad? I don't want to spend all that money on a new stator and not have that be the problem. Does anyone know what the resistance should be in the Vrr?

Thanks guys I just really suck with this electrical stuff
-Matt

According to the excellent flow chart 32-35 AC volts is too low, you did take the reading @ 3000 rpm? http://fzronline.com/wiki/doku.php?id=v ... flow_chart

@ 3000 rpm your looking for at least 40 volts AC. Since your VRR plug is melted it's possible that your Stator to VRR plug is also melted causing high resistance and the possible cause of the low AC output, it's located under the fuel tank inspect that first before wasting your cash on a stator.

When my battery wasn't charging it was the afore mentioned Stator to VRR plug it was melted. I chopped it off, then I soldered the wires using heat shrink and self amalgamating tape to insulate. The old crap VRR then did it's job.

I've since upgraded to the safer 5 pin VRR, You should also upgrade

If your stator fails high on resistance, greater than 0.37 Ohms. There's 3 solder joints on the stator that may have become dry, re-solder them then test the resistance again.

HTH