Searched the Tech Forum but did not see anything addressing this question.

Is it possible to "push start" the bike in an emergency situaion? Much like you would a manual trans car. In the event your starter or battery should go bad while on the road. (I guessing that if the alt/stator should go bad you could only run as far as there was a sufficient charge in the battery)

Thanks for any advice on this.

 

If it's fuel injected you have to have enough juice to pressurize the fuel system. If you just had a dead starter but good battery my guess is yes.

 

You need sufficient power in the battery to run the electrical systems for the engine to start. Under 9 volts and nothing is going to start regardless of how hard or fast you push it, the ECM shuts down.

If you charged the battery assuming it was low, then you can push start the bike but use second or even third gear to get it started.

 

Ahh yes, you're right. I forgot that the FI, Fuel Pump, & ECM need battery power at the time of the "push". But I got the answer I was looking for. You can push start the bike as long as you have "juice".

Thanks All!

 

Stuff happens!

All else being okay, meaning the electrical system, and you have an issue in which you cannot use the starter....put her in 3rd and ask any innocent bystanders to PUSH. Wait until the pushers turn loose or pass out and then pop the clutch. BUT...be sure you're headed in a straight line and the pushers are pushing straight. My buddies darn near pushed me off down an embankment in Yellowstone once. I think it was on purpose.

One of the riders in the group had lost an alternator and I was swapping batteries with him every 75-80 miles. He would die...coast to the side of the road and we would switch batteries and my pals would push me off and I would charge the dead battery for another 75-80 miles, or until he died again.

We got in a bind out in Texas once and one of the guys had a metric bike that none of our batteries would fit. He had alternator issues too. We managed to get him to a Wal-Mart and I wired-up a lawn mower battery on his back seat. All the bike shops in Waco were closed and Autozone had nothing that would fit. He got all the way down to Austin on that lawn mower battery and our hotel happened to be right next door to the Honda shop and they fixed his alternator the next morning. On the return trip, he took the battery back to Wally-World and got a refund.

 

I pop started my gixxer plenty of times, never the fatboy knock on wood.

I think it's alot easier to popstart a 300 lb bike though. And yeah, pop it in second. Run run run, jump onto the seat, as soon as you hit the seat let the clutch go and rip the gas. hah

 

I had to push start my 92 fatboy this summer.... I had forgot to hook back up the plug to the rectifier/voltage regulator after an oil change and ran the battery completely DEAD. After figuring out what I did and plugging it back in. A guy stopped and asked me if I needed help, and between the two of us it came right life.........IT IS POSSIBLE. But mine is a carb'd EVO. The FI bikes might be trickier.

 

So you gotta at least have juice (battery) on a FI model in order to get the initial charge of fuel into the TB at the time of the "push" as well as charge the coil for the spark.

Man I miss the simple ways! (kick starter & magnetos)

 

Think about the situation you may be in and it could be more than one.

If you just have a battery that has gotten weak and will not start the bike, nor take a charge, but still have a good alternator...you can push it off and run it as far as you like....just don't shut it off if the battery is so shot that it is not taking a charge. The bikes charging system will get you home, or to a shop or whatever....just don't shut it off until you get to where you are going and turn off anything electrical you can. Now, if the battery is shorted-out internally, all bets are off under this condition as it will simply short-cut the alternator power being generated.

Now, if you have a defective charging system that is not charging the battery, the life in the battery will run the bike until the volt meter gauge drops down to around 8-9....then look for a place to stop, because it's about to die. This condition WILL NOT push-start and you will need another power source. Like I mentioned above....a lawn mower or auto battery will work just fine if that's all you can find. The bike does not care what size it is, it only wants 12-V. Catch a taxi to Wal-Mart and be sure to get some heavy-gauge hook-up wire so you can rig the battery from your rack, back seat or wherever.This should be good for 80-miles-or-so until the rigged battery peters out

I have already proved that a battery that will not run an EFI bike with a bad alternator, can be placed into a good EFI bike and be pushed-off. The bikes mentioned in my previous post were EFI models.

They dropped the kick-starters in 1986. I was so paranoid abut that I installed a 5-speed kick-starter kit on my 86 Softail. It saved me more than once before i got rid of the bike years later. If you had enough battery power at all to make a spark, you could kick-it-off.

 

Running the bike off the alternator on a weak or deffective battery is the best way to trash the alternator (stator). It's design will keep a battery up to snuff if everything else is performing properly but to run off the alternator for any distance will damage the system more often than not, then you may end up replacing not only the battery but the alternator and possibly the regulator too. Best bet is to call for a pick up and have the bike delivered to home or a shop for repairs.