If your V11 starts running badly check the obvious first!

[Guzzirider]

Recently Helen's V11 Sport starting running badly during the brief spell of hot weather, stalling in traffic and coughing and spluttering at low revs. I took it for a ride myself and it was definitely poorly.

 

I had never changed the fuel filter in nearly 30000 miles so started by replacing that, cleaned and reoiled the K & N filter, put in new plugs, a new petrol tap (the old one was seized open)and still the bike ran badly.

 

Noticed the inlet rubbers were starting to split and thought they may be leaking air, so bought a new pair, and Mal came over to give me a hand fitting these. He suggested checking valve clearances too, before adjusting TPS and balancing the throttle bodies.

 

Before he was able to set the TPS and balance TBs, the bike refused to start, and a quick check of the battery revealed it was low on charge. Once it was fully charged, the bike still would not start, until I swapped starter motors with my Quota then she fired up, enabling Mal to kindly set TPS and balance the TBs (thanks Mal!).

 

With the bike running, I did a voltage test on the battery and she was not charging so suspected a possible problem with the alternator.

 

The next day, with a fresh mind and a cup of tea, I fitted a recon starter motor, then sat down and read the charging system schematic that a forum member had kindly written, and first off decided to check the 30 amp fuse, and hey presto, it had blown. Replaced the fuse and the charging system started working again.

 

So in summary, I reckon the bad running was mainly down to the low charge on the battery caused by the blown fuse, and all the other work we had done, although not wasted, was not the cure of the problem.

 

Lesson learnt- check the obvious stuff first!

 

Going to fit a stronger earth to the reg / rect now as discussed in an other thread just in case this was the cause of the blown fuse.

 

You live and learn

 

Guy

[Kiwi_Roy]

Now all you have to do is figure out why the fuse blew

Perhaps the clip is not holding the fuse tightly enough causing it to overheat and melt rather than blow (this happened to mine)

Check also the headlight relay socket is tight, if there's too much resistance there the system will overcharge because it senses

the Voltage down stream of the relay.

BTW any special headlights, driving lights etc don't add them to the headlight load, use a separate supply.

 

And the starter motor - there-s nothing too much can go wrong there unless it's a Valeo and the magnets have dropped off, perhaps it just needs some new brushes.