Ok, I searched around and I couldn't find anything that sounded quite right. Here's the situation: I have an 84 Magna V30 w/ ~14,000 miles. I was coming home this morning and, idling at a stoplight, all of a sudden the engine died. Now when idling the RPMs just die off and the engine died. Just before the engine dies the Oil Pressure light flashes on, I'm not sure if this is important.
Now I got home and nosed around a bit, trying to see if there was some obvious piece which had fallen off (my version of troubleshooting :) ) and decided to try to run the bike a bit to see if I could hear anything obvious now that I didn't have a helmet on. To my surprise the engine started right up and idled for about a minute. When it first started it sounded fine, but then after about 30 seconds the engine developed a sort of galloping cadence. Instead of a steady rrrrrrrrrrr it was more like RRRRRrrrrrr RRRRRRrrrrrr RRRRRrrrrrrr and then the engine died in one of those gaps. (Does that make sense?)
Finally, I checked the oil, and the level appears to be too high. This seems strange to me, because when I checked it yesterday it was right between the lines, but now it's above the second line. On this point my only guess is that I've gone mad and either forgot how to check the oil or somehow didn't notice how much there was before.
Does anyone have any ideas what could be wrong?
Well my first thought is going to be the battery I would check that then from there well I am betting that is it!!!!!..... If not well then we need to devel further......
Ok, that might make sense. The other day I left the key in the ignition and the battery died. :oops: I had a friend give me a push and popped the clutch and it restarted. This was Friday afternoon. I rode around the block several times and that seemed to fix things. My understanding was that the alternator would recharge the battery if the engine was running. But on Friday (and Saturday) there weren't any idling problems.
Does all this make battery trouble seem more likely? And what can I do to check it. I have a multimeter, if that helps. :)
The alternator will recharge the battery but it will take a couple hours of riding to recharge a battery that is that low.
Fill her up with gas and hit the highway and burn the tank, that should get the battery back up, or simply put a charger on it, but not as fun.
Well what you can do is try charging the battery and start the bike and check the voltage when running should be around 13.2 or so when charging but really if you want you could just check the voltage at rest should be around 12.7 or so clean your terminals too..
Ok. I like the idea of fixing my problems by riding around. :) I checked the voltages. Across the terminals it's between 12 and 13. (Can't get any better than that because it's analog and the scales are 10V or 50V) Running it goes up a touch, and at 5000RPM it creeps up to almost 15V. The terminals look pretty clean. There's a bit of junk on the negative, but it looks almost new.
I'll try going for a ride this afternoon and hopefully that will chase the bugs away. Thanks, guys.
Ben
Have any idea how old the battery is?? If it is a couple years old or older then I would just replace it, that way you dont overwork the charging system. Then ride!
When my 96 gets excessive idle time, it seems to drain the battery. Last month at the wrench session it died while we we doing the carb sync, and last friday after stop n go traffic for 1.5 hours it was dead on the restart. New Yuasa battery, good charging voltage, no extra electonics. Anyone else experience this?
I leave it on a battery tender most the time and hardly ever sit in traffic to avoid any problems.
David Morris
MOOT #362
Hmm... went for a ride this afternoon. It was plenty fun (except the fog rolled in and I got a bit chilly) but when I got back to home, the engine died while I was waiting to get off the freeway. It was only about a 2 hour ride, but there weren't any stop-n-gos in it. It was pretty depressing when I was waiting at stoplights holding the throttle to keep the engine going.
Is this likely to be just the battery and I should get a new one in the morning?
Ben (fingers crossed that it's something easy)