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Posted by chief
- February 19, 2011, 18:35:16 PMI strongly suggest you keep a battery tender on the bike. Letting it idle for periods of time really isn't good for it.
make sure you have some good gas in there and ensure the battery is fully charged. Assuming the battery is fine doesn't cut it. It can seem fine and still not have enough juice to fire the bike.
The bike sitting there for 10 minutes with the ignition on likely drained the battery enough to cause a problem. The 800 is a carb'd bike... "giving it some gas" won't hurt it. Hell, its hard for me NOT to work the gas when starting up my truck and bikes with EFI... I'm used to working that throttle!
Posted by ColinO
- February 19, 2011, 18:02:18 PMHi, I live in N.E. Connecticut and have been storing my 2001 drifter in my shed for the winter, unfortuneatly, I do not have a garage or warmer place to store it. I had been starting it up every weekend on Sat and sun since I put it away in late Oct. I did add marine grade fuel stabilizer before storing it. It had been starting up fine until we hit a really bad patch of cold weather the last few weeks. I would use the choke to start her up and once warmed up, push in the choke slowly and let her run for another 15 mins. The battery seems to be fine. 2 weeks ago, I tried to start it up and it took 4 tries before it started, but it seemed to be running ok with the choke on, I walked away for about 10 mins and noticed that I didn't hear the engine running, it had stopped. I tried to restart it and no luck, batter is fine, just not starting? I tried to give it a little gas with the throttle while staring it, not sure if that was a good idea? Anyone have any suggestions?