claudejones Posted August 18, 2010 Posted August 18, 2010 My V Star 650 Classic has been running fine all summer. I just went to start it up to ride home and it acted normally, headlight came on, the ticking sound from under the tank, the starter cranked, the motor started to start, but then, it just died - now, there's no electrics at all. Nothing comes on when we turn the switch, no sounds, no headlight, nothing. We've looked at all the fuses in the little fuse box, plus the two 30 amp fuses that are below and to the right of the little fuse box and they all seem fine. The battery reads 12.5 volts. We loosened up the battery connections and re-tightened them. Still, the bike is completely dead. Are there more fuses we should be looking for? Is there a rectifier, and if so, does someone know where to look for it? Does anyone have any other suggestions?
christofeser Posted August 18, 2010 Posted August 18, 2010 if the 650 is similar to the 125, then check the cable coming from the starter motor is tight enough... it's located at the front of the engine underneath a rubber boot. IF that's not the problem - I can't help ya mate. Chris
jimm Posted August 18, 2010 Posted August 18, 2010 The fact that everything is dead sounds bad, but it probably means the fault is quite simple. You checked a lot of the obvious things and as they seem to be OK I'd suspect the earth. You say you checked the battery voltage, I assume that was across the terminals, so the battery is OK. What you want to check is the earth bonding - check the voltage from the +ve to some more remote point on the frame or the engine. Try a bolt head or something, you may need to scrape a bit to get a good connection. You should still get 12 volts plus. If the reading is less than you get across the battery directly, the earth connection is bad. If the -ve connection seems OK on the battery, find the other end and check it as well. Even if you do get good voltage on the meter, it could still be a bad connection on any of the main cables. If there is high resistance on any of the connections, you could still see more or less the corrent voltage on the meter because it only draws micro amps - but whenever you draw a bigger current, the voltage drop across the bad connection goes up to the point where it all seems dead. Dunno where the wiring is though...don't know the 650 Hope this helps, Jim
Paulwhite Posted August 18, 2010 Posted August 18, 2010 on the 125 most of the weiring connectors are in the headlamp, could be some moisture has gotton in and soaked one of the connectors, have you tried to start it up by bridging the terminals on the solenoid? or even bumping it? could be a number of things, if its electrical. as to the reg/rect it should be somewhere near the battery, im not familiar with the 650 model but there all similar.
jont Posted August 18, 2010 Posted August 18, 2010 This sounds exactly like the problem I had earlier this year. The bike was completely dead, although a 12v tester across the terminals indicated everything should be ok. I checked all the usual suspects but everything was fine. In desperation I took the battery to an electrician mate of mine who has always been into bikes and he discovered that the battery, although showing the correct (ish) voltage, was actually putting no current out due to a duff cell. Got new battery and away we went, problem solved!! So, check out the actual current mate!
Moderator Airhead Posted August 18, 2010 Moderator Posted August 18, 2010 ............... We've looked at all the fuses in the little fuse box, plus the two 30 amp fuses that are below and to the right of the little fuse box and they all seem fine. ..................... Did you check them for continuity?
claudejones Posted August 19, 2010 Author Posted August 19, 2010 Did you check them for continuity? Problem Solved: It was definitely a failed battery. We took the unit to a specialist battery store nearby and they performed a load test on it, It immediately error messages saying the battery was defective. That jived with the voltmeter results we got on the bike - we would have 12.5 volts across the terminals with the ignition off, but as soon as we turned the key, the voltage dropped to a few millivolts, They sold me a new battery and after installing it, the motorcycle fire right up. Thanks to all for your suggestions.
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