Bike wont start after rainstorm | GTAMotorcycle.com

Bike wont start after rainstorm

SuperStealthySquid

SuperStealthySquid

Well-known member
Soo I rode my bike in the rain on wednesday night, and thurdsay it had a hard time starting be eventually got going. Then I rode in the rain again and it got alot wetter all night. Anyway today it was very difficult to start, and it died on the side of the road. Couldnt electric start it and I killed the battery, luckily somebody helped me bumb start it, thank you very much! and I got home, but now it wont start at all!
So I just drained what gas was left and put new stuff in, no luck.
So I took the tank off thinking the air filter was wet but it seems fine! Im at a loss, any ideas??
 
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What bike is it? How many kms? What do you know about it's history?
 
is a '93 Suzuki Bandit 35000 kms total, just got it this year and have had the carbs cleaned and synced in april, and new plugs and fresh oil <500 kms ago. Been riding it near daily since april and just had this problem after it got all wet last night.
 
Check coil and cables. Fuse.

Does it crank? Hows the plugs? Spray starter spray see if she'll even start.
 
I took it apart today, drained the float bowls and checked the fuel system, the vacuum is good and the fuel is good. I figured it must be electrical, but the spark plugs all look OK and give good spark, but they look dry. I charged the battery this morning and it cranked very well but still would not start.
The weird thing is I can push start it, just not using the electrical start, which suggest electrical problem. Yet the good spark and dry plug suggests a fuel problem, so i'm still not sure what the problem is. I will pick up some ether tomorrow to see if that will start it, thanks.
 
Take a look at the inline fuel filter. If it is clogged up with muck then fuel can't get through..

Also double check what you have the fuel tap set to. Since you are testing try "pri" for prime this will cause fuel to flood into the carbs to help with starting. But for riding it should be on "on". Obviously not "res" for reserve.
 
My friend has the exact same problem on his 89 katana 600.

Quick start did not help, cleaning the plugs did not help. Bump start it and it goes on the first try. It is electrical, he has had his carbs apart multiple times and there is nothing wrong with them.
 
This is a matter of opinion, but ether usually not the right tool for a situation. I don't know what it will do for you here, since you already say you can bump start it. I would check the starter switch, kill switch, and starter relay to begin with.
 
silverbullet132 said:
My friend has the exact same problem on his 89 katana 600.

Quick start did not help, cleaning the plugs did not help. Bump start it and it goes on the first try. It is electrical, he has had his carbs apart multiple times and there is nothing wrong with them.
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Yup I think you're right on. Everything looked good under the tank and I was still stumped so I put it back together and gave it push start just to hear it purr. Took it on an hour run to warm it up and it ran perfectly, no hesitation or anything out of the ordinary, I made sure to give it a good flogging, for purely scientific purposes of course :p

Obviously the problem is some piece of electrics that is involved in starting the bike but not running. The main culprit looks like the battery or starter motor, but after a night on the charger it cranks over nicely and will give spark. Not sure what else could explain this problem. Ill update if I figure it out
 
Sounds like a wet contact possibly somewhere, you might want to take all the plugs/connections apart you can get to dry them out, apply some dielectric grease into each one, to prevent further water build up in them, see if this helps you out, or some WD40 sprayed around the electrical connections to see if it helps as well.

.
 
Now my VFR is doing the same thing almost, starts and revs to 750rpm for a second then dies. If I start it again immediately after dying it is ok, very odd :(
 
My bike has short plug caps and when wet they will sometimes arc through air onto the body of the bike or give a really weak spark. Adding some dielectric grease around the boot solved that issue.
You could have corrosion on spark plug wires which gets bad with weather - take of the plug boot and cut a little bit of the wire and reapply boot after cleaning.


Does the same thing ocassionaly happen when bike is dry?
 
nomad_man said:
My bike has short plug caps and when wet they will sometimes arc through air onto the body of the bike or give a really weak spark. Adding some dielectric grease around the boot solved that issue.
You could have corrosion on spark plug wires which gets bad with weather - take of the plug boot and cut a little bit of the wire and reapply boot after cleaning.


Does the same thing ocassionaly happen when bike is dry?
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Nope never, and only does it in the morning when I leave for work (6am ish)
 
well just a mysteriously as it started it stopped. Tuesday morning it suddenly began working properly again and has (fingers crossed) started fine all week, no idea what the problem was. Just to be safe I applied dielectric grease to the boots, battery terminals, and some grounds.

Silverbullet, does your vfr have a choke or fast idle for cold starts? maybee its burning off the overnight condensation
 
silverbullet132 said:
Now my VFR is doing the same thing almost, starts and revs to 750rpm for a second then dies. If I start it again immediately after dying it is ok, very odd :(
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SuperStealthySquid said:
well just a mysteriously as it started it stopped. Tuesday morning it suddenly began working properly again and has (fingers crossed) started fine all week, no idea what the problem was. Just to be safe I applied dielectric grease to the boots, battery terminals, and some grounds.

Silverbullet, does your vfr have a choke or fast idle for cold starts? maybee its burning off the overnight condensation
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Sounds like SuperStealthySquid's bike caught a bug, passed it over to silverbullet132's bike while SuperStealthySquid's bike recovered xD
 
SuperStealthySquid said:
well just a mysteriously as it started it stopped. Tuesday morning it suddenly began working properly again and has (fingers crossed) started fine all week, no idea what the problem was. Just to be safe I applied dielectric grease to the boots, battery terminals, and some grounds.

Silverbullet, does your vfr have a choke or fast idle for cold starts? maybee its burning off the overnight condensation
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Glad yours is fixed :D

&it has automatic fast idle operated by a wax valve on the throttle body. It did not do this all winter even down around -15c but you are probably right.

Sent from my SH-02E using Tapatalk
 
silverbullet132 said:
Glad yours is fixed :D

&it has automatic fast idle operated by a wax valve on the throttle body. It did not do this all winter even down around -15c but you are probably right.

Sent from my SH-02E using Tapatalk
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I spoke too soon, had more issue today but it seems like something different this time, no sense in starting a new thread tho.

Details are had a big backfire at about 8000 rpm, then the bike lost power and died... managed to get it started again it ran for about twenty minuites by cruising around 6k, then I hit about 9k on a fast road and it suddenly lost all power, it sounded like **** and my top speed was about 40kmh so I pulled over but could not get it to run properly again.
This doesn't seem related to the earlier problem but I already had a thread so yah, any help getting this fussy arse bike running again would be lovely :)
 
SuperStealthySquid said:
I spoke too soon, had more issue today but it seems like something different this time, no sense in starting a new thread tho.

Details are had a big backfire at about 8000 rpm, then the bike lost power and died... managed to get it started again it ran for about twenty minuites by cruising around 6k, then I hit about 9k on a fast road and it suddenly lost all power, it sounded like **** and my top speed was about 40kmh so I pulled over but could not get it to run properly again.
This doesn't seem related to the earlier problem but I already had a thread so yah, any help getting this fussy arse bike running again would be lovely :)
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Still imo bad electric contact. Check the wires, particularly around the fusebox. If it's an old style glass tube fusebox then the spring loaded finger that hold the fuse in place are known to fail, but i think yours are blade style fuses. In either case - bad contact that shakes off occasionally with vibration. Now have to find it.
 
Hold on, let me understand this...

IF you use your electric starter - does the motor turn over strong ?
When you push / bump start it - it starts right up?
 
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