Start with the basics, the battery is the life blood.

[tttjump]

When a bike is not running right, start with the basics, like the battery.
High compression motors and weak spark leads to, hard to start bike and a poorly running bike at idle and at cruising speed. On my bike the charging systems puts out 13.5v at 4k rpm, so if I am running around at 2 to 3k rpm the battery may not be getting charge while driving around town.

I thought the bike was hard to start becuase it was cold outside. I thought the idle was poor becuase it was cold outside.

But after riding bike and motor had warmed up, idle was still poor.

I also thought that riding the bike, the battery was being recharged.

I have a hard to start bike, poor idle, and valve train chatter, and the bike bogs down between 1/4 throttle and 3/4 throttle.

How did I discover this weak battery, well I went on a 15 minute ride around the block mostly at 3k rpm and around 30 mph.

I get back home shut off bike and when I came back to start bike 5 minutes later, bike won't start.

I pull battery and charge it. Re-install battery and what do you know, the bike starts with the push of the button. no cranking just fired right up. Bike had been sitting for 6 hours while battery was being charged.

Bike's tach works right away, before it took a minute or two for the tach to indicate rpm,
Bike is at 2k rpm and after about 20 seconds settles down to 1k rpm,
Bike is idling fine now and the valve train chatter is gone.

So the lesson learned is be sure the battery is fully charge before looking at other causes.

[antiq]

+1000 Good post!

[zx7 nick]

yes i found about that to day and if it is dead jump box willnot work

[michael davis]

Man I've Been Having The Same Problems With My Bike And Thought It Was A Bad Battery.

[stickboy]

I recently "inherited" a 97 EX250r from a friend who was moving and didn't want to take the bike with him. He told me that he and his friends tried to get it running and they were pretty sure the motor was siezed because they couldn't turn it over or push start it. I took posession of the bike and began tearing it down thinking I would have to replace or rebuild the engine. Well, I took one of the covers off, found that the motor spun over fine, so the very next day I went and picked up a new battery. I popped the new battery in and the bike fired right up! So for the price of a new battery and some front turn signals, I got a good running bike! Lesson learned, always check the basics first!