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Another "bike won't start" thread

3K views 26 replies 10 participants last post by  JBear 
#1 ·
Decided to put the wife's CBR away for winter. Generally I empty the fuel and refill them with VP non-ethanol gas for storage, something I've done with all our bikes for years with no issues. Generally, this means I use my little manual siphon pump to pump the tank out into a gas can, then start it up and run it till it stalls, then turn it over once or twice to be sure it's dry. Then I just refill it with VP, fire it up to fill all the lines back up, and put it away for the season.

Well today (because she's only ridden it like, twice since I bought it for her, and I really wanted to ride it) I unplugged it from the battery tender and took it for a ride. It fired right up on the first try, ran like a million bucks for a couple miles, then back home. I proceeded to siphon the tank out, start it up and run it dry, which only took about ten seconds of idling. I've never been able to get so much out of any of my other bikes with the siphon pump, but regardless: I tried to start it two more times to be sure it was out, and it seemed to be. So I filled it to the top with VP, hit the button and it fired right up again first try and almost immediately settled into a nice idle. I bumped the throttle a time or two, let it settle, and killed it. So far so good.

Another of my off season practices (sometimes) is to take the bikes out of the garage and put them in the basement of the house, which (because the outside bulkhead sticks up out of the ground almost a foot) involves setting up a 2x12 like a seesaw so I can ride up/over/down the bulkhead stairs into the basement, so I can do stuff to them over the winter without freezing. I got the plank out on the bulkhead, hopped on the bike (which fired right up and purred like a kitten again) and road it across the yard over to the bulkhead, where I shut if off again and waited for my wife to come over and stand on the end of the plank so I could get the front tire on and hold it in place. Usually I have an elaborate system for doing this alone, but today I was feeling lazy. So- wife in place, I pulled the clutch and hit the starter, but it just turned over and didn't start. I realized then that I'd shut it off with the kill switch and didn't reset it to run position, so I did, but it made no difference. I tried cycling the key, the kill switch, putting it in neutral, but all it does is turn over. It doesn't sound like the pump is priming or anything, none of the normal pre-fire noises are happening, just the starter cranking it over to no avail. Any ideas what (and how) I may have screwed this up?
 
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#2 ·
Check the main fuse . I had the same kind of issue a week ago . Not putting the bike away because Im in Florida haha but made it to the end of the road and it shut off walked it home and the fuel pump was not priming I thought it might be the quick shifter and tore it apart them realized I didnt check the fuses . Boom there it was the main fuse blew . Start with the easy stuff first .
 
#3 ·
While that makes sense, it begs another question... why did the main fuse blow? It suggests to me that something else is wrong. I will check it though. Tomorrow. When the sun has been up for a few hours and it's not an icebox out in the garage.
 
#6 ·
When the stator of my CBR was burned the bike suddenly wouldn't start, no starting problem before. It would turn over but nothing more. Sounds similar to your problem?
My son got the bike started by putting it in third and starting it while we pushed some speed in it. The dash went crazy and then went blank. Battery was fine but just couldn't be charged. If you measure the battery and it's low, but not critical low, it could well be a burned stator.

My bike was a 2006/2007 model, in fact an early 2006. After asking my friend, you know him too (Google), it became clear that burned stators are a major issue with the 2004-2010 Honda's.

I have no idea if this is helpful, just wanted to share my "suddenly won't start" story because it sounded similar.
 
#9 ·
Well, thanks for the suggestions. Last night I finally got out the service manual and started ripping things apart. That thing is like a choose your own adventure book, you need ten bookmarks just to get from the end to the beginning. Regardless, fuses are good, kill switch is good, two other things I forget the name for are good, but I'm not positive I was even testing all this correctly. If it was a car, I'd say it was the pump, but when what I'm working on gives me no reasuring signs that I have any idea wtf I'm doing, I run out of confidence almost as quickly as ambition. So it'll be off to the dealer, I'll let you know what silly thing I should have been able to figure out it ends up being.
 
#11 ·
Yeah, that's pretty much the whole point of them. Well, of this one anyway. I didn't get it figured out yet, because my 18 hour session of plow season kickoff on Saturday pretty much de-prioritises anything riding related for the next 3-4 months. If I'm uncharacteristically ambitious, time won't go by so fast that Spring is hear before I've gotten around to dragging it to the dealer. Since I really wanted to do some work to it in the basement over the winter, I have high hopes that I won't disappoint myself. But I also know me really well, so my expectations are more modest...
 
#12 ·
Lol I hear ya. Too bad about plow season starting, but I guess it was probably bound to happen at some point. I get it on the ambitions also, I'm the same way I have high hopes to do all sorts of stuff, then I think about it more and come down to earth and try to be realistic about what is actually going to get done. Either way, good luck with the bike and when you figure out what went wrong I'm curious.
 
#14 ·
Reminds me of a time when I had driven down to Chicago in the winter. Truck ran great all the way down, parked outside at a friends house, went outside an hour later to move it and it was fine. Only difference is, went back in for a couple hours instead of just moving it across the yard like you did and it wouldn't start. Ended up blowing a fuse from God knows what to this day (I'm assuming cranking too much) and it turned out the fuel (diesel) had gelled up.

Definitely not fun treating the fuel and changing the filters in zero degree weather.

I wish I could say it sounds like yours is as simple as this was, but it doesn't sound like it. Good luck with it though.
 
#19 ·
Just curious, and completely off-topic, why do you always use the kill switch?
I turn my key and the bike stops humming.

The kill switch is, for me, the last opportunity to stop the engine in case of an emergency.
 
#21 ·
Not sure, but I know that it's what they pushed when I took the MSF course. Granted, I was already doing it, and I'm not sure why, but that probably played a roll in why I still do. At least with the CBR, which I don't usually ride. Now, on my 10R, I usually shut it down by putting down the kickstand as I coast into my parking spot. Because it's cool. But I don't screw around with the wife's bike like that.
 
#24 ·
So, today I finally got around to putting it on a trailer and hauling it out to the cycle shop. Weather is getting nice, wife is getting restless. Anyway, told them what was wrong, they came out to help unload it. Turned the key and hit the button and what do you know! Fired right up. Dammit. So he shut it off and tried again, no dice. Whatever it is it's apparently intermittent, sounding more and more electrical to me. They'll figure it out, I sure couldn't. I've mounted some fancy hand-grip thingees for my ankles when it's done, so recovering it should be relatively comfortable.
 
#27 ·
I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed or skeptical. They're alleging that both the battery terminals weren't tight. Now, I'm not saying they were tight, but I'm pretty sure I took the battery out while trying to diagnose it for some step of the process, and when I gave up I just didn't tighten things back down all the way because I figured they'd be taking it back apart anyway. I could be remembering wrong though, sort of a lot has happened since then. Like winter. All of it. Regardless, though it would be embarrassing, I'm hoping they're right, because I don't really want to have gone to the trouble of bringing it there only to have it do this again the first time she rides it to work and have her be stuck there.
 
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