more starting woes :(

[diablo23]

Recnetly bought my 1999 ZXR400 all was fine it was starting and running on the button , all be it with a slight misfire , then yesterday went out for a ride and as soon as you go to stop at traffic lights or a junction etc it would die and then refuse to start , managed to get it home after a few times of the engine dieing and lots of attempts to get it to fire up again. it now refuses to start at all , it will turnover but not fire , then to add some more confusion it then decided it wont even come onto ignition turn the key and get nothing no oil pressure or neutral lights , come back 10 minutes later and turn the key and it not only gets to ignition but even fired , but it wont do it consistently.

So any ideas , currently im thinking could it be a spark issue or is it more likely to be a fueling one?

[parby81]

check all your earths as well, Ignition not coming on with no neutral lights etc could be an electrical problem, which will also not help any running problems. Check and clean the earths and apply some copper grease for a good contact.

[diablo23]

cool , where are the earths located ?

[diablo23]

update!! , its alive!!! cleaned the battery terminal and noticed they were lose so tightened them up and thought ill rule out a battery problem first off so attempted to jump start her from mums Honda 4x4 and wouldnt ya know it it started first press of the button no choke or anything. So guessing ill be needing a new battery


Cheers for the replys guys

[parby81]

y will you need a new battery, if the terminals were loose that will have caused the issues you said. Doesn't mean the battery is Fubar'd though. I'd wait and c, as long as it holds its charge it'll be fine

[diablo23]

because although i tightened up and cleaned the terminals it still didn't start , but it did from the jump start , speaking to the previous owner it turns out he had issues similar to this that the garage put down to being the alarm system draining the battery and so disconnected it and re charged the battery for me to now get the same problems with the alarm disconnected it would seem logical that its the battery or alternator / bike alternative charging system to be at fault?


but yeah going to leave it a few days until my tires arrive and it goes in to have them fitted

[parby81]

well in that case, once you've got the new one in and tightened up properly, I would be checking the charging system just to make sure its not knackered.

Test the voltage across the batt terminals, the voltages on the rectifier and there is a little test in the manual you can do and test the voltage AC on from the generator. As long as they check out all ok you're good to go. Better to check them though rather than get stuck somewhere thinking the new battery has fixed everything.