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How to jumpstart a motorcycle

1283 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  adri
I made this quick clip on how to jumpstart a motorcycle to try to help some new riders out. Then I realized for V-Rod owners... oouuff...

But with a little help I came up with this compromise. First, here's the video:


It might be nothing new for many experienced riders here, but it's probably good to review every so often for something that many people won't do too often. I'm in Canada so we all just carry jumper cables in our cars because the winter's are hard on batteries and jumping a total stranger is a normal part of life 4 months out of the year.

Anyway...

From that point on, based on this post from 2012, it looks like you can substitute the positive terminal on the battery with a nut coming out of the starter in order to make life a lot easier on the side of the road where you may not have access to tools.



Personally, I have no idea if my big jumper cables will fit in there, but apparently it worked for that user so good on em!

Hope this helps someone.
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I made this quick clip on how to jumpstart a motorcycle to try to help some new riders out. Then I realized for V-Rod owners... oouuff...

But with a little help I came up with this compromise. First, here's the video:


It might be nothing new for many experienced riders here, but it's probably good to review every so often for something that many people won't do too often. I'm in Canada so we all just carry jumper cables in our cars because the winter's are hard on batteries and jumping a total stranger is a normal part of life 4 months out of the year.

Anyway...

From that point on, based on this post from 2012, it looks like you can substitute the positive terminal on the battery with a nut coming out of the starter in order to make life a lot easier on the side of the road where you may not have access to tools.



Personally, I have no idea if my big jumper cables will fit in there, but apparently it worked for that user so good on em!

Hope this helps someone.
Why not just pull the airbox cover off and jump it normally to the battery terminals. Depending on years that have the solenoid on the left frame tube, you can also attach the positive to the bat side of the solenoid and the negative to the exhaust pipe, which is an engine ground .
Putting the battery positive cable to the starter itself is wrong. All you will do is spin the starter but the rest of the electrics will still be dead or whatever voltage it is pre jumping. Not enough voltage to the ECM and system it still likely won't start, even if the starter is cranking like crazy.
Ron
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I guess he was doing that because getting the air cover and air box and everything out of the way was "too much work" and he thought that would be simpler? I'm just taking the guy's word for it. Haven't needed to jump my V-Rod, hoping to keep it that way lol
So if I did have the car running while jump starting, what problems l encounter? Did i fry something? And if so where do I start?

Thanks for any help.

Yes, I should have checked here first, but I didn't. Now I just need to et it started.

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk
If it was only running a short while you might be ok, otherwise, my mechanic put it to me simply like this:
"If the recipe calls for setting the oven at 350 degrees, your car is like putting it at 2,000 degrees"

Which I guess makes sense... Just look at the rate motorcycle batteries like to be charged at (1 ah) versus car batteries (5 ah).

So my understanding is basically, car's charging system generates enough power that left on for a long period you could fry something... but at this poitn if it's already done and you don't see any issues, you're all good.

I did have a friend who's wires by the terminals cracked altogether on her Suzuki she bought after the previous owner had it boosted from a running minivan... but I can only speculate that those were related, I don't know if they were or werent' for sure.
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