Dying Battery Dilemma

[V1]

My motorcycle began experiencing some weak starting over the last 2 days. No clue how old the battery is. It might even be the original from 2004 for all I know.

It weakened over the course of about 10 starts, and it finally gave up last night at my friends house. Since I needed it to get me home, I used his battery charger to zap it for about 4 hours which got me enough juice for a few more starts including some today.

Well, today I took my bike into the city. When I reached my destination, I shut the engine down briefly. Then I tried re-starting the bike 5 minutes later, but there was not enough juice in the battery to turn it over.

So now I'm faced with using a car battery to (hopefully) get just 1 last start out of it, and get home. I know that the electrical systems on cars have higher voltage, and therefore should not be used to jumpstart a bike.

Is there a way I can use the car battery to safely get just one last start out of this battery so I can get home?

 

[Eddie]

Use a battery charger to be safe. The best thing would be to get a different battery, rather than stressing the bikes electrical system. JMO Ed

 

[Chris142]

If the bike is 12V and the car battery is 12V there is nothing wrong with jumping the bike with a car battery.

 

[dwendt44]

Just don't have the car engine running when jumping a cycle battery.

 

[02zx9r]

i had the same problem on my zx9. It would start after being on the trickle charger and run fine, but if I rode around town and not on the highway it would not start again, the battery would be dead so I would have to roll it down an incline and pop the clutch and it ran fine, until i shut it off and tried to restart it again. When I ran it on the highway to and from work there was never a problem restarting. Someone told me that the bike has to be above 2000 rpms to "charge" the electrical system, so when I would ride around town it wouldnt really charge but the highway runs at 5K rpm for 40 minutes would 'some what' charge it enough to recharge the battery.

Finally had some test done on the bike and it was a bad stator. Had that replaced and starts fine every time now, no matter where or how short a trip i take. So I would run the bike around town and it would drain the battery so I wouldnt have enough juice to start it, but it would run fine if i bump started it. I guess on the highway runs it would get enough of a charge to charge the battery some.

So short answer, hopefully it is the battery. Have some test done to see if the stator and relay recifier is all working properly.

 

[V1]

I wound up jumping straight from the car battery with car engine turned off. Someone once told me to do it that way, but thanks for confirming that notion. It worked fine.

If the charging system is dying, and not the battery, how do I test that?

 

[dwendt44]

"If the charging system is dying, and not the battery, how do I test that? "

You can check it with a volt meter at a fast idle. 1500-2000 rpm should work for test purposes.
It may take a few seconds for the regulator to adjust to the rpm, so wait for a moment.
Load testing the battery would tell you if that's the problem; charge it first.