The International CBX Owners Association

Again, don't think it's the battery. If all connections are good, it's a bad starter. I have a box full of bad starters.

Dave

Hi to all from sunny South Africa!

I have a problem with my CBX starting and it seems quite strange to me.

Pushed the starter button and the neutral and oil light dimmed way down.

So I trickle charged the battery (fairly new battery).

The bike started and off we went for a ride but on restarting the bike after fueling up the bike, on the same trip, the lights dimmed again (no headlight on).

I stuck in 2nd gear and rolled forward dropped the clutch and it started easily.

Once at home I tried to restart the bike and again the lights just dimmed, but for some reason I decided to hold the start button in and it sounded as if it was trying to build up energy to start. It had two slow rotations and it started right up. I checked the battery and it had dropped to 11 odd volts.

I decided to check the battery again later and it had returned to around 12,5 volts. I redid the test and the same thing happened only this time I noticed a whining noise (almost like a capacitor charging) and the bike struggled to turn over twice and then started. The battery again dropped to 11 odd volts.

I redid the test again but this time without letting the battery any recovery time, the same result in that the two slow rotations and then the bike started but the battery went down to 10,5 volts.

I've subsequently checked the battery again and it's back to 12,5 volts.

Any thoughts on what it could be?

Take the battery in and have it load tested. Just because you have 12.5 volts doesn't mean battery is still good. It could have a bad cell. Even new battery 's fail. That's what I would test first.

Check that you have a good ground on your black battery cable. Also known as "earth" to people who drive on the wrong side of the road.

Check the Specific Gravity. (Load Test)
As Tevan said, If that's low or gone then you can have 12.5 volts but no strength.

I'll check the battery, but I would have thought that with a dead cell the motor wouldn't turn over at all, let alone taking it's own sweet time to get there eventually

I'll check the earth / ground / negative too

As for riding on the wrong side of the road : I thought I would try the otherside out this morning but a guy in a blue suit and a peaked cap seemed to be very "P'd" off with me.

Tx's guys

Mac