New Owner - troubleshooting '82 GS650 that won't start

[ddaniels]

compression check?

[_chaboi]

Hey Steve,

While my carbs are soaking, I just went outside to check the timing to make sure that's good. When I tried to turn the engine over, it wouldn't budge and now my battery is sitting at 10V, when just the other day it was putting out a good 12.1V. Any thoughts on what I should be checking to find out why the battery is draining?

[_chaboi]

Well now my battery is only putting out 10V so I've gotta solve this mystery first LOL. Really got my hands full with this project.

[RustyTank]

While my carbs are soaking, I just went outside to check the timing to make sure that's good. When I tried to turn the engine over, it wouldn't budge and now my battery is sitting at 10V, when just the other day it was putting out a good 12.1V. Any thoughts on what I should be checking to find out why the battery is draining?

Hey man. Steve will no doubt be able to point you in the right direction. I thought I'd throw my 2 cents out though. Couple things,

1. from what I read it sounds like you may have a parasitic leak. Something, probably an exposed wire, is drawing power from the battery while the bike is off. I've never had to deal with this myself, and some of the other guys on here will have better guidance on this, but I've read that the best thing to do is go through all your electric connections and make sure they're secure and look good. You never know, one might be hangin lose or not connected at all. Then if that looks good take a look at your wiring throughout the bike and see if there isn't a stripped wire somewhere touching the frame...or some other piece of metal. Exposed wires are super common on old bikes like ours.

2. Good job goin through your carbs. Not enough people do that...including me.

3. Welcome to the forum. I noticed in one of your last posts you responded directly to Steve. If you want to directly respond to someone's comment it helps to use the 'Reply With Quote' button, on the bottom right of every comment

[_chaboi]

Hey man. Steve will no doubt be able to point you in the right direction. I thought I'd throw my 2 cents out though. Couple things,

1. from what I read it sounds like you may have a parasitic leak. Something, probably an exposed wire, is drawing power from the battery while the bike is off. I've never had to deal with this myself, and some of the other guys on here will have better guidance on this, but I've read that the best thing to do is go through all your electric connections and make sure they're secure and look good. You never know, one might be hangin lose or not connected at all. Then if that looks good take a look at your wiring throughout the bike and see if there isn't a stripped wire somewhere touching the frame...or some other piece of metal. Exposed wires are super common on old bikes like ours.

2. Good job goin through your carbs. Not enough people do that...including me.

3. Welcome to the forum. I noticed in one of your last posts you responded directly to Steve. If you want to directly respond to someone's comment it helps to use the 'Reply With Quote' button, on the bottom right of every comment

I totally didn't realize that I should be replying with the "quote" function, so thank you! Regarding the parasitic leak - it looks like I left my kill switch in the "run" position, could that kill the battery even though the key isn't in the ignition? Is it also possible that I could be looking at a bad stator or rectifier/regulator?

As far as the carbs go, the way people talk about them makes the task seem way more daunting than it is! The teardown and rebuild hasn't been too bad at all, just being patient and taking my time with it has been pretty interesting.

Regarding the potential electrical issue - how advisable would it be to redo the bike's wiring harness? I'd say my skills are beginner to moderate, but I'm up for a challenge.

[RustyTank]

I totally didn't realize that I should be replying with the "quote" function, so thank you! Regarding the parasitic leak - it looks like I left my kill switch in the "run" position, could that kill the battery even though the key isn't in the ignition? Is it also possible that I could be looking at a bad stator or rectifier/regulator?

As far as the carbs go, the way people talk about them makes the task seem way more daunting than it is! The teardown and rebuild hasn't been too bad at all, just being patient and taking my time with it has been pretty interesting.

Regarding the potential electrical issue - how advisable would it be to redo the bike's wiring harness? I'd say my skills are beginner to moderate, but I'm up for a challenge.

1. No, leaving the kill switch in the on position will not kill your battery.

2. Could the power drain be from a bad reg/rec issue? Gosh man, I just don't know. Possibly? Plenty of guys on here are gonna be able to answer that question better than I am. That said, there's a specific reg/rec you'll want to purchase when you decide to upgrade. That's a whole topic on it's own.

3. I don't think it's prudent to be thinking about a wiring harness replacement at this point. That's definitely puttin the cart before the horse. If you google this sentence, 'how to find a draw on a motorcycle battery', there are a ton of vids to help you with you start to figure it out. You'll need a multimeter btw. Here's the first vid that popped up for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0F1gcgxayc, within the first 48 seconds the guy describes the exact scenario you've described with your bike.

[Gorminrider]

By the way, ideally, you should move this thread to an appropriate section of the technical forums. I know it's a peculiarity of GSResources to offer
"Featured Forums" as a kind of homepage, so it might not be obvious but there is a notice here at the top of the page:

Forum: GS Motorcycle Discussion Area

This area is to be used only for general GS topics. For non-GS related topics, join the Off-Topic usergroup. Technical questions are not to be posted here.

[tom203]

Leave the harness alone for now.....sounds like a new petcock is calling....at least check yours for flow. Maybe when bike went down something happened to it.
Also understand the “choke” system ,actually an enricher to supply extra fuel hit during cold start. Do NOT apply any throttle during cold cranking with “choke” or you defeat its purpose. My bike needs “choke” even at 70 degrees to cold start.
A failed r/r is a good candidate for electrical draw when key is off....disconnect it for now. Fully charge your battery and try starting .

[RustyTank]

Leave the harness alone for now.....sounds like a new petcock is calling....at least check yours for flow. Maybe when bike went down something happened to it.
Also understand the “choke” system ,actually an enricher to supply extra fuel hit during cold start. Do NOT apply any throttle during cold cranking with “choke” or you defeat its purpose. My bike needs “choke” even at 70 degrees to cold start.
A failed r/r is a good candidate for electrical draw when key is off....disconnect it for now. Fully charge your battery and try starting .

Tom, is there a way to check if a power draw is specifically coming from the reg/rec? Or does one just switch the old one out for the new one hoping that fixes the issue?

[_chaboi]

1. No, leaving the kill switch in the on position will not kill your battery.

2. Could the power drain be from a bad reg/rec issue? Gosh man, I just don't know. Possibly? Plenty of guys on here are gonna be able to answer that question better than I am. That said, there's a specific reg/rec you'll want to purchase when you decide to upgrade. That's a whole topic on it's own.

3. I don't think it's prudent to be thinking about a wiring harness replacement at this point. That's definitely puttin the cart before the horse. If you google this sentence, 'how to find a draw on a motorcycle battery', there are a ton of vids to help you with you start to figure it out. You'll need a multimeter btw. Here's the first vid that popped up for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0F1gcgxayc, within the first 48 seconds the guy describes the exact scenario you've described with your bike.

Awesome! Looks like I've got a weekend of troubleshooting and cursing the bike ahead of me. Thanks for your help

[_chaboi]

Leave the harness alone for now.....sounds like a new petcock is calling....at least check yours for flow. Maybe when bike went down something happened to it.
Also understand the “choke” system ,actually an enricher to supply extra fuel hit during cold start. Do NOT apply any throttle during cold cranking with “choke” or you defeat its purpose. My bike needs “choke” even at 70 degrees to cold start.
A failed r/r is a good candidate for electrical draw when key is off....disconnect it for now. Fully charge your battery and try starting .

Hey Tom, I actually already replaced the petcock as the old one was a real hunk of junk and I could barely turn the dial on it.

[_chaboi]

By the way, ideally, you should move this thread to an appropriate section of the technical forums. I know it's a peculiarity of GSResources to offer
"Featured Forums" as a kind of homepage, so it might not be obvious but there is a notice here at the top of the page:

Forum: GS Motorcycle Discussion Area

This area is to be used only for general GS topics. For non-GS related topics, join the Off-Topic usergroup. Technical questions are not to be posted here.

I'm going to be totally transparent here...I have no idea how to do that lol

[Gorminrider]

There is a way..somewhere, but only you or the administrator can do it. No big deal anyways but you know, the old saw, "If Everyone did it, the universe will collapse"

[RustyTank]

Any updates?

[_chaboi]

Any updates?

Man work has been killing me lately. I've had basically no time to even mess around with the bike, I'm going to restart work on it soon, I'm going to borrow a multimeter from work and see if I can find a short somewhere on the harness. I'm definitely a little overwhelmed with this but hopefully I can get this bike back into running condition. I'll be posting more questions soon.