Dave's Adventure In Electrical Land

[Valkpilot]

Ride the bike to work this morning.  No problems.

Leave work and ride the bike to SunNfunSue's shop for a hair cut.  No problems.

Leave SunNfunSues's and get on the bike. Half a rev then nothing. Press the starter switch and hear a popping sound from under the right side cover.  Hit the starter switch again.  Nothing.

Pull the right side cover.  Check all the fuses.  None blown.

OK.  No lights, no indicators, no blown fuses, no nothing.  Kill switch in the run position.  This, says I, looks a lot like a fried starter switch.  Search the phone for likely assistance. WANDERER!  Call Jeff, leave message about needing help field servicing a starter switch.

Proceed to take the switch apart without assistance.  Contacts are greasy and dirty, but absolutely no sign of scorching or arcing.  Scrape 'em clean anyway and reassemble.  Turn the key. Now I've got lights and indicators.  GREAT!  Hit the starter switch.  Pop. Nothing.

Maybe it's the clutch, kickstand, neutral, whatever switches.  Nothing.  Wait awhile. Turn key.  Lights and indicators! Hot cha cha cha!  Push the starter button.  Pop. Nothing.

Jeff calls.  Put him on speaker and run through all the scenarios.  No progress. It's behaving as if there's a circuit breaker popping, then resetting after a few minutes.  Jeff calls Daniel Meyer, then calls me back.  Lots of head scratching over the cellular network.  No luck.

Gent pulls up on a sport bike.  He listens while I run the sequence.  Points to the starter solenoid and says that's where the "pop" comes from. Hmmmm.  He ambles inside for a haircut saying he'll help some more when he comes back.

Call Jeff again.  He still suspects the starter switch, but we're now nosing around the battery connections.  All seem good, but "reset" interval is getting longer.

Decide to try and push start it when my new pal Russ comes back.  Jeff's making multiple offers to come up and help, but Richardson to Lewisville ain't just around the block and I keep telling him to hold off.

I button up everything I've taken apart while waiting for Russ.  He comes back.  I offer to let him do the starting while I do the pushing, but the poor guy won't hear of it, so he gets behind and starts shoving 800 lbs of Valk and my less-than-petite frame through the parking lot.  It doesn't start.  We try again, and get a few sputters of ignition,  but no start.

Now, I think I've got it.  I call a friend to bring his truck, thank Russ and let him travel on, call Jeff and tell him to sit back and have a beer, I won't be needing Wanderer's AAA service this particular evening.

My friend arrives.  We hook up jumper cables to his (non-running) truck, touch them to the Valk's terminals, and it roars to life as soon as I press the starter switch.

Only took two hours to finger out what was wrong:

BAD BATTERY.  BAD, BAD BATTERY.  No warning, no crank and crank and crank and crank without starting, no slow crank.  It went from enough juice to start to not even enough juice to fully energize the starter solenoid.  The only thing I can figure is I had a cell suddenly short.  The circuit breaker-like behavior was a recovery cycle after the starting circuit was draining it completely. 

It's only about two years old, spring of '08 I think.  I reckon the heat here uses 'em hard.

Rode home, pulled into the garage and shut it down. Immediately turned the key back to on.  Only dim lights and indicators.

Off to the store tomorrow...

[godfire]

Whoa!
My starter switch went out at Lake Texoma.
Luckily some new found friends gave me a push.
Got her home, fixed the switch, and two days latter she would turn over two to three times and then nothing. Battery voltage was around 11v. New battery and life is good!

Sorry to hear about your troubles....

[Daniel Meyer]

Glad you got her home!

On these machines, it's often the simple things...

[Valkpilot]

Glad you got her home!

On these machines, it's often the simple things...

Do you think my diagnosis is correct, O Sage of Many, Especially Electrical and Petcock-Related, Things Valk?

The lack of warning symptoms is a little disconcerting.  This could have been a middle-of-nowhere serious issue.

[Wanderer]

There is a 25% off coupon on Dallas Honda's Facebook page that looks like it covers batteries, David. You can get your old batt. tested there too.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3260152&id=206371634144

I just installed this Signal Dynamics led on Bill Parish's standard and my (sounds like a two cylinder tractor) GS1200 in an effort to keep the surprises to a minimum, hopefully. Be careful where you mount any of the led line voltage gizzmos. They are sooooo bright! ~Jeff

12 Volt LED Voltage Monitor

[Daniel Meyer]

Sounds like bad battery or alternator for sure.

Test the battery since you've got 'er home then go from there.

[Valkpilot]

Sounds like bad battery or alternator for sure.

Test the battery since you've got 'er home then go from there.

Had the battery tested.  Lot's o' volts, no amps.  New battery procured.

[Daniel Meyer]

Woot!

[Valkpilot]

Woot, indeed.  Relief to confirm it was something so easy.

[Dodis]

Same happened to me at the '07 Lone Star Rally.

Turn on key, lights and all just fine. Hit the starter button, all goes black. Did a few obvious checks, then used my high-tech helmet lock cable to jump across the battery (lightly), no spark at all. Dead cell...  My brother ran to a local auto parts (on his HD  ), got another battery just before they closed, all has been well since... 

Mike

[Valkpilot]

Same happened to me at the '07 Lone Star Rally.

Turn on key, lights and all just fine. Hit the starter button, all goes black.

Exactly the symptoms, it's just that I leaped immediately to more complex probable cause.

You can bet I'll pay a little more attention to starting behavior.  This new battery is the same brand as the other (Xtreme from Batteries Plus), but a step up: 200 vs 130 CCA and twice the warranty. 

I carry a lot of stuff to do road-side repair, but I'm not carrying an extra battery!  I may, however, make a set of compact jumper cables to stick in the dark recesses of the right saddlebag.

[Valker]

This dreaded "Pop" from the battery was a fairly common occurrence on GoldWings a few years back (Maybe more than a few). First I've heard of it on ours.

[RainMaker]

The original battery (Yuasa) went 9 years in my I/S and was still starting it when I decided to change it just because of the age.  I put in another Yuasa and expect it to go another 7 years and match it's predecessor.   Used to get batteries for my previous bikes at Pep Boys and Wally World and they would usually last about a year before needing replacement.  Yuasa is the best, IMHO.

The original 10+ year old battery still holds full charge and is being used to power 12V items on my work bench.....

[Valkpilot]

The original battery (Yuasa) went 9 years in my I/S and was still starting it when I decided to change it just because of the age.  I put in another Yuasa and expect it to go another 7 years and match it's predecessor.   Used to get batteries for my previous bikes at Pep Boys and Wally World and they would usually last about a year before needing replacement.  Yuasa is the best, IMHO.

The original 10+ year old battery still holds full charge and is being used to power 12V items on my work bench.....

My original went 10 years too.  We'll see with this new one.  If it gives trouble after only a couple of years, I'll be back to Yuasa too.