Top,
I wish it WAS that easy, but no dice. The battery is rock-solid, and the starter cranks with direct juice....gotta be in the relays somewhere....dang!!!

DKLAZ

DKLAZ wrote:
Battery checks out fine, and a car battery will NOT start the bike. I bridged the positive terminal on the battery to the starter lead and it fired right up...so now I start working backwards thru the relay units (testing continuity), and the switches (main, stop, neutral, and kickstand)....make sense?

The biggest thing that has me perplexed is that it started on Friday, ran for 100 yards, then died. right after that it would turn the starter (for about 2 minutes). Then when I gave up and rolled it back to park it, it wouldn't turn the starter at all.

Weird, or normal?

DKLAZ

It's the starter relay. sometimes the internal contacts will stick together, and ya can't get the thing to stop trying to start unless you disconnect the battery. Yours just happens to not close internally or so much carbon on the internal contacts not allowing enough juice to get to starter. But when ya said ya jumped it over from the car bat to the starter, then there's ya problem

Erb,
So the question is....which of the relays that I see is the starter relay? There are a couple under the left-side cover...which one is it, and is there a way to clean it up so it works, or do I just have to replace it?

DKLAZ

The starter relay is the one under the left side cover that has the battery cable, starter cable, and a 4 wire plug going to it. It should have fuses on it too so check them first.

Here is one on eBay...
Relay

Under left cover, it has the pos bat cable going to one side, other side goes to starter. 30amp fuse incorporated into it, other fuse is just the spare, also has the 4 wire connector. You can also just jump the relay post with a paair of insulated pliers from the pos bat post to the other large post which goes to starter, if bike fires up, then that confirms it's the starter relay.

The way the relay works, the smaller wires, which 2 go to the relay coil, when you push the start button, this energizes the coil, the electromagnetic field pulls the open internal contacts closed, this then supplies the battery power to starter and bike starts. once the bike starts and you let go the start button, the coil de-energizes, relay internal contacts opens, no power going to starter anymore, bike is running and off ya go

WOW....I am SO grateful to you guys!

I bridged the gap and she fired right up and idled like an angry thing that idles.

Now I just need to get my hands on one locally, or I'll order the one that Shamrock sent over.

THANKS GUYS!!!

DKLAZ

Hey guys....just gotta say thanks for all the input and information! I isolated the problem to the starter relay yesterday afternoon (thanks Erbman), and I have the one ordered that Mr Shamrock linked to on Ebay.

I tried calling around locally and anyone who could order it for me locally wanted $130.00 for it....I paid $24.95.

Thanks again....hopefully I can help out another in the same situation someday.

DKLAZ!

SO...the weather's way too nice to let the bike sit today. The Starter Relay that I ordered won't be here until Tuesday.

Does this make sense? I'm going to attach two separate pigtails to the terminals on the bad starter relay (still in place) and then use those to start the bike, then separate them and be really sure that I don't short them against anything after it's running.

Am I missing anything obvious??

DKLAZ

ok the starter or whatever my have burned out in the event of continueing atempts to start the bike but what made it spudder out in the first place??? i have had a battery show good volts but with no cranking amps but i never got the engine going if they were that low to not even get me out of a parking lot. bad ground mabye??

Starter is fine and the battery is strong. Turns out it was the starter relay under the left-side cover (Erbman and Mr Shamrock called it perfectly!!!). I couldn't wait for the ordered part to arrive so I added a couple pig-tails that stick out from under the left edge of the seat. Now all I have to do is turn on the key, touch the wires, and she fires right up. It's a short-term fix until the part arrives, but it worked. Just got back from a chill 100-mile errand to get lunch and watch my nephew's football game!

Gotta love the weather in Phoenix this time of year!

DKLAZ