so after going through all the posts regarding bikes not starting because i'm running into the same problem. I'm not electrically savvy, so when people are talking about measuring volts, im confused. I know I have a voltage meter lying around somewhere, but what settings should i be using on the voltage meter? My bike shut down on the way home last night, and it wouldnt start back up. At first I thought my battery crapped out so I charged the battery and tried again. It turned over and i rode for about 5 mins before the same thing occured. This time jumped the bike and rode for another five til she crapped out. At last I jumped her again and this time i would hear her crank and it sounded like it was about to turn over. Yet no luck. So after reading that it may be a r/r problem, i replaced it this afternoon with my friends to see if that was the problem. No luck, after replacing it still the same problem. So now I'm left to believe that either the stator or the wiring between the stator and r/r is jacked up, is that correct? I thought that the stator wouldn't be an issue in the bike turning on with full juice. I would understand if the bike died after an hour when the battery died, but the fact that it wont turn over leads me to believe that its not a stator problem at all. I thought maybe the fuel pump was a problem, so again replaced it with my friends fuel pump from the same model and no luck. Fuel pump is pumping fuel just fine. So now i've bought spark plugs to cover all the bases and am praying this isnt an ignition coil problem. Any other thoughts or opinions? Any advice on the settings for the volt meter, and how to use one would be greatly appreciated as well.

 

Let me ask a couple pointed questions:

1. when the bike dies, can you crank the engine over to try to start it again or is the battery not strong enough to do that?

2. When the bike is running, does the headlight and gauge lighting seem bright or dim in your own opinion?

I'm thinking it is probably either the stator (which is basically your generator) or the rectifier/regulator (which prevents the bike from over-charging your battery). These will sometimes go bad.

As far as your meter goes, I'd start out by putting the multi-meter on 20 or 50 volts dc and put the leads across the battery when your bike is running and see if the voltage is above 12V or not and if the voltage stays steady or decreases.

Let us know what happens?

 

battery doesnt seem to be strong enough to turn over after trying to crank it for a few minutes. the headligh and gauge lighting actually seem pretty bright tho. ill let you know after i test the voltage tomorrow, thanks a bunch for the reply.

 

still dont know whats wrong, anybody?
having some trouble running that electrical diagnostic test on this forum. how do you set your multimeter to measure current leakage? i thought DCmA would work, but all i got was a reading of zero. so.....thinkin that cant be right. cmon help me out!!!