So I towed my bike down to Tenneessee to do some riding with my family. Took it off the trailer, started just fine and put it in the garage. Started last night to let someone hear the pipes, started just fine... This morning it won't start. Started to turn then a bunch of clicking, figured it was the battery so I went to the auto store and picked up a new battery and got it home and in... Same thing except it tries harder when turning over then eventually it starts clicking. Ran fine last night and now it won't start. Any ideas before I take it to the stealership?

Thanks guys.

 

Loose cables at the starter or chassis ground?

 

Well it is turning over... It wants to start, but it just won't. The battery came from advanced auto which has more cranking amps than the factory one. I feel like it's getting power but it won't start. Maybe a fuel problem?? It's so strange though because it fired up just fine last night. Roughly 14-15 hours ago.

 

EFI or Carb?
Petcock open? Fuel in the tank?
Fuel pump running?
Spark?

 

Charge the battery...

 

It's EFI...

It has gas. How do I tell if it has spark??

Thanks

 

People will poo-poo this, but the easiest way is to confirm spark is to pull the boot off, put in a spare plug, ground it to the frame or engine (I just hold it) and crank the engine. You should see nice bright blue spark.

You can get testers of various type that are better at diagnosing weak coils and such, but I've never needed one.

You can hear the fuel pump humming, right? Fuel at the injectors?

 

Yes the fuel pump is humming good. Sounds like it always does it just won't actually start.

 

Well, I guess we have to assume its delivering fuel pressure to the injectors. Should probably also assume you've got compression. It's cranking, so you've got power. Last piece of the puzzle is the ignition. Being EFI, that complicates things slightly. I'd start with spark and work backwards. No spark could mean a lot of different things.

I don't own and have never worked on an EFI bike so I don't know what typically fails or exactly how they differ from an EFI car but the basics should all be the same.

Would be nice if an experienced late model owner could chime in.

Hell, it could even be part of the security system for all I know.

 

I have heard it might be the security system as well but my thoughts on this because I had an issue a while back and found out the batteries were dead in the fobs but basically when I had an issue the fuel pump wouldn't even prime... The blinkers would flash and ask me to enter a code to override it. It's not doing that right now, I turn the ignition hit the run switch and then try to fire it up and it cranks and cranks and almost starts but doesn't successfully start. I'm wondering if it's not getting fuel, but that seems odd considering it ran great last night. I dunno.