My '94 f2 is having some problems not turning over. When I hit the ignition, it just clicks the starter relay and doesn't attempt to turn over. The lights and everything turn on and it's a brand new battery. I checked the r/r and I'm 99% certain that isn't the problem. I'm on my last nerve with this bike and don't really know what to do. How can I be certain it's the starter when I haven't had any problems with starting before this? Any help would ease my frustration.

 

Sounds like your starter motor is shot. Have you tried bump starting it?

 

Could be the starter relay itself too. I know it's not 100% the same, but my riding mower wouldn't start last week - the solenoid would click, but it wouldn't throw over to the starter, I ghetto bypassed it by jumping from the batt straight to the starter to get the yard done. New solenoid and everything was good again.

Not sure I'd try the ghetto-bypass on my bike though. Although - if the relay isn't closed, feeding back to the ICM shouldn't be an issue. Just a thought.

 

My battery reads 13.0 on the multimeter when it's off, and 10 something when I turn the lights on. I didn't think that was out of the ordinary. I tried by-passing the relay with wrench, but whenever I made the connection, the lights would cut out and it would seem I had no power. Does that mean my relay is trashed or not?

 

Hmm - that doesn't sound right at all. You shouldn't drop 3 volts on a new battery just cause the low beam and running lights are on.

Sounds really like you have a bad starter motor. Battery straight to the starter should get it to spin over, regardless of the relay, clutch switch, sidestand switch, neutral switch, anything. (Use jumper cable wire or something pretty thick.)

Here's the troubleshooting procedure from the Honda Service manual.

 

I vote bad battery...Try jumping it off a car battery (Car NOT running)

 

def bump start it and go from there

 

I live at the bottom of a hill, so bump starting it is a little difficult. I tried jumping it and all the power would go out on my bike when all the cables were hooked up. When I took them off, my lights came back on. This is a relay problem?

 

you've got a gremlin somewhere. Are you saying that when you turn the key on, the gauges/indicators light up normally off the current battery? then when you connect jumper cables from a car battery that all of your gauges go out and the bike has no sign of electrical power? That almost sounds like you had your jumper cables backwards and the potential voltage was canceling out. Not a good thing to do. Or does this happen only when you try starting the bike with jumper cables attached?

Either way- have you tried the step I recommended where you run a cable from the positive on the battery directly to the positive terminal on the starter motor? You need to isolate parts and pieces, break it down to each component in the string and test them individually to see what isn't working right for you.

 

one other thing - doublecheck your chassis ground. quick method is take the black side of your jumper cables, clamp it on your neg battery terminal, clamp the black on the other end of the cable to somewhere on your frame or motor that isn't painted. Even on the end of a unpainted motor mount bolt would work.

If you have a bad neg. battery cable or connection, it could create some of the problems you're mentioning, except for the whole "lights go off when I hook up the jump-start battery" deal - that's still got me confused.