Yesterday I went for a long ride up the coast, the way up went fine, on the way down we stopped for the restroom, came out and bike wouldn't start. Intially when I went to start it my F4i gauges did there sweep but the lights were VERY dim. Wouldn't even click over. Being we were over an hour away from civilization I just decided to bump start the bike and get her back to where we could tow her the rest of the way.

After bump starting her and starting to ride her home I noticed the gauges kept turning on and off. Mainly after I would hit bumps, but constant non the less.At one point on the ride back I remembered my high beam was burned out and thought to help save power I would turn my high beam on (headlight off essentially). At that point the bike really ran like crap. It would spit and sputter when I would try and accelerate and wasn'table to take it over a certain RPM(can't tell you at which RPM because my gauges where turning on and off and tach wasn't reading right). I turn the switch back off (headlight on now) and it pretty much went back to running right.

I was able to make it back into town (not my town) and the bike died at the first light I pulled, and my buddy went and picked up his truck and hauled my *** back to town (another 45mins away).

Today I started to rip into it and put a volt meter to the battery. It reads 12.9. When I turn on the ignition it drops to .5v. Turn the ignition off, jumps back up to 12.9.

Any help would be appreciated because of the fact that in a week I will be using this bike as a daily driver and commuting back and forth from work, roughly 15 miles each way! HELP PLEASE!

 

i would check if you have a short somewhere.....but first make sure your battery connections are tight....gauges turning off and on while riding is usually a sign of a loose connection meaning you hit a bump or something and it briefly clips out...did the bike actually turn off???

i dunno....but that seems to be a very odd problem....take out the battery, put it on a trickle and let it charge to full cap....then reconnect making sure the terminal connections are secure and see what happens....

if that works, we'll have to start diagnosing further, but like they always say, check the obvious first !

 

A shorted battery will show correct voltage until a load is put on it, and then it will fail.

sounds like a shorted battery. I would take it to someplace like autozone that will test it for you for free.

Or like ffingers suggested, a loose or corroded connection can act this way.

 

I took out the battery and load tested it. FAILED. Biked up a replacement battery (had a lifetime warrenty) and she starts right up.

Now, was my dead celled battery a cause & effect, or just an effect? This is the second battery in 6 months. The first one blew-up on me. I recall testing my stator and rectifier last time and the test showed that they were good.

 

how did the first one "blow up"....if you are running through batteries that frequently there is something probably wrong...use this one for a bit and make sure it stays good, if you go through this one too, we have to start trying to figure out why....

personally, i bought a battery about 1 year ago and i have run it to dead about 20 times (i know shame on me for not having it on my trickle, it was due to where it was parked there was no outlet and i hated taking it out all the time)...but even being dead so many times...if i trickle charge it, it holds a charge no problem and so long as i ride continuously, it never has a problem...so even being a battery up , it should be okay...

are you buying a sealed battery (i am assuming you are as they are the recommended type for the f4i, and i think all sportbikes)...they cost more but are much more reliable than the cheapies you can buy at the autoparts store....

 

What I mean by "blew up" is it turn into the shape of a balloon and nearly took off my family jewels. It caused such a large surge it took out my PCM, 3 fuses, a headlight, and a relay under the dash. That battery looked very old. That situation seemed like a over charging issue. After I installed the new battery and all the new "fried" pieces I tested the rectifier and the stator and they both passed. This time the battery seemed to just take a dump on me. I'm going down right now to test the stator and rectifier.

 

Again, everything tests good. Only thing I found where a few "loose" connections. What I mean by loose is that they just weren't fully clicked in.

 

A few things to consider.

How are you testing the charging system? In some cases, you will have an overcharge at a certain rpm only. You should run the bike all the way to just under redline and see what its charging. It should never go over 14 volts or so measured at the battery.i would run it at 1000 rpm intervals until at least 11-13 grand while having someone either running the bike or the volt meter.

Your situation sounds like the battery was overcharged. It will lead to frying the internals of the battery.A weak rectifier will cause this.

 

Do the F4is have R/R issues like the F2s do? If so, that is what I would check. It sounds sort of like the symptoms of an R/R going south.