All 650's Honda CBR650FA Rough & Surging throttle & Flicking lights/Dash

[HondaBoi3]

Hey there, I'm new here and hoping someone can help me with a problem I'm having with my CBR650F. I've owned it for three years without any issues, but this year I'm having trouble getting it started.

Here's what happened: I stored my bike in an underground garage for the winter like I have in past years, but this time I added fuel stabilizer to a full tank of gas instead of draining the tank like I did the year before. When I tried to start it up last week for the new season, the headlight and gauges came on, and the fuel pump primed, but when I tried to turn the engine over, it made bad sounds, almost like it had a dead battery. I tried jump-starting it with a portable car battery kit, and that worked, but the engine was running rough, misfiring, and the dashboard lights were flickering. The speedometer was surging up and down, and the RPM gauge was bouncing from 0 to redline repeatedly.

I tried to jump-start it again, and it worked, but it cut out completely after I rode it about 200 meters. I had to walk the bike back to storage. To check for major damage, I jump-started it again, and it started up with the same rough idle and flickering dashboard.

I'm not very familiar with motorcycles, but I know they need spark, fuel, and compression to run, and since the bike does run, I'm not sure what's causing the super rough idle and crazy gauges and throttle surging. I have charged the battery up to 100%, but before charging it, I checked the voltage, which was showing 12.05V in the bike.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what could be causing this issue?

 

[Brammers]

Drain and replace fuel with new. Replace battery as 12v is a dead battery.

Report back after that.

J

 

[JRinKtown]

Any chance you accidentally crossed the cables when hooking up the battery before you stored or after? Your battery, as Brammers said is dead, but I've never seen a dead battery cause those electrical manifestations. Crossing the cables can screw things. Your issue sounds electrical so check that starting with your cables, or your memory if you reconnected your battery at any time since it was last running good. Doubt if it's gasoline related.

 

[HondaBoi3]

Any chance you accidentally crossed the cables when hooking up the battery before you stored or after? Your battery, as Brammers said is dead, but I've never seen a dead battery cause those electrical manifestations. Crossing the cables can screw things. Your issue sounds electrical so check that starting with your cables, or your memory if you reconnected your battery at any time since it was last running good. Doubt if it's gasoline related.

if you mean connecting negative to positive terminals, no I did not do that, I believe I connected the positive terminal first then the negative, and I saw a small spark connecting the negative terminal (or other way around but it was positive to positive and negative to negative) but I felt as if this is normal as they always spark just a bit right when you connect a battery, car or motorcycle?

 

[Brammers]

The 650 platform is notorious for acting very odd with a bad battery.

The rough running just sounds like bad fuel (possibly with some water in it).

These threads crop up most years, usually from the northern US states or Canada due to the winter weather.

J

 

[User28]

I had similer issues last year when i layed the bike up fo 2 mths and on starting all hell played up, rough running warning lights on and would not rev aboue 2000rpm , then cutting out difficult in restarting , i changed the fuel checked for rodent damage, replaced the battery , but still the same , th3n by accident looking down i noticed something in the end of the exhaust pipe, some nice person had jammed a rag down the end of the exhaust not fully but partly obstructing , pulled it out then started the engine as for flooded procedure and after serval attempt bingo started and run lovely , on checking the dtc codes it was showing fauly this and that can remember what so cleared all and no issues since

 

[Redrocket]

That’s interesting. I laid up my Moto Guzzi V7 850 for 4 months on SORN after giving it a service and filling the tank with E5 that probably had no ethanol in it, as is possible in the UK. I also stuffed kitchen roll up the exhaust pipes to prevent moisture ingress. I resisted the temptation to start it until I put it back on the road in March. I didn’t bother removing the kitchen towel plugs; it just blew them out when it started. I’m surprised the Honda didn’t do the same. I suppose each pot is relatively small by comparison…

 

[Cláudio Nogueira]

I suggested around here countless time. Maybe the battery is not even holding close to 12v under load.

Disconnect it, hook on it a 21W regular automotive bulb and measure voltage ate terminals. You can find it dropped to 8 or below and in that case, it´s battery lack of capacity that is causing that behaviour. Measuring open circuit battery voltage is useless. Says almost nothing.
It´s just a guess...

 

[HondaBoi3]

All Thank you very much for your help. The problem has been fixed. I changed out the fuel for new fuel and also bought a new battery because the old battery underload trying to start the bike would drop down to 10V or less. fuel might not have been a factor at all but I swapped it out anyway. Very interesting how motorcycles behave differently with a dead battery compared to a car. A car with a dead battery will run fine even if the battery is completely dead once its jumped but would just have issues starting again. Guess bikes aren't cars though.

 

[miweber929]

A car with a dead battery will run fine even if the battery is completely dead once its jumped but would just have issues starting again.

Thats because a car has an alternator and a bike has a stator. Similar functions, but work differently.