1982 XJ550 Problems

Ok, so I have been having issues with my bike. It will only start by roll starting. If I try to start it with the starter/battery, it just turns over till the battery dies. When you roll start it, it runs perfectly fine and has full power, I just can't get it to start by electric. The starter sounds fine and normal and it has good spark plugs in. I have no idea what is up. It started starting hard last winter and now is impossible to start unless there is a hill nearby. Any thoughts?

 

Sure. Happened to me a few times.

"Soggy" battery or poor connections to/from the battery, solenoid or GROUND STRAPS from engine to frame.

Here's the phenomenon: The battery can have enough "oomph" to spin the starter quite vigorously, but in doing so NOT have enough juice left to fire the ignition system. A related symptom is one or two "attempted" sparks when you let the button go, but that doesn't always happen.

Fully charge your battery, and take it to an auto parts store and have it tested. Might be time for a NEW battery, or you've got some less than wonderful connections.

 

thanks so much for the quick response, guess I will be checking it out today on my rainy day off work.

 

I've found my XJ650 will do that with a bad/out of water battery.

My working theory is the starter sucks up so much available amps, there's not enough left for the coils when the battery is not up to snuff.

Some quirk of the way power is allocated in this particular wiring setup, I suppose.

 

I should probably add that if it KEEPS happening once you're sure about the battery itself, it might be time to attend to your alternator. If you put a freshly charged battery in and it starts but then starts acting up again it may be that the battery isn't being fully charged.

How many miles on the bike?

 

Usually a bad alternator or charging system problem is pretty easy to see on most old bikes, even without equipment...if you don't see the headlight get brighter as you rev the motor off idle at night, it's probably not charging.

Most of them don't kick in until about 1800 rpm or so....in my experience.

That was always my first clue when I had a bike with a stator or reg/rec going bad...

 

The bike only has 18,000 original miles on it.