Bike wont start, out of ideas, help?!

I am out of ideas people. The bike was running fine, the starter motor died. I bought a brand starter motor, replaced the electrical parts (fuse/solenoid/relay). Check my video below, this is the first sound I received, which was very promising since I just had the clicks before. The engine would not turn over, so after a few tries the battery died. I fully charged the battery and have a reading of 13v. It is cold out and I tried to start it today and get absolutely nothing! No sound whatsoever. I have oil/gas/all the right things turned on/in neutral etc. Help me out?

Guessing battery is toast, and would have it load-tested.

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Good Fortune!

You may have fouled the plugs/flooded it trying to start the bike with a low/dead battery. These bikes like batteries in tip top shape.

KZ440 ltd 1982

Patton wrote: Guessing battery is toast, and would have it load-tested.

Ironically, the most accurate load test for the battery is the one he just did: see if it can crank the starter. Sounds like it's cranking fine.

Check compression and verify strong spark. Then check for fuel on plugs. One of those three things must be missing.

If coil is original, it could be bad. Check spark with plug against cylinder. Also, if points and condenser are old the condenser may be bad.

Make sure the fuel levels in the carbs is right (clear tube) to prevent flooding. As stated above, flooding will keep the thing from firing. BTW: the twins have the plugs wired in series so if you foul one plug, neither can fire and it goes stone dead.

Guess how I learned that....

AFTER the video the battery died, I recharged it and got a good reading, but when I hit start I get nothing at all. Should I get the battery checked?

A bad battery will charge and appear to have a good voltage level, but as soon as you try to put a load on it, the charge disappears.

To do your own "load test" look for 'the high beam test' to get the details. In short, turn on the key and turn on the high beams. Measure the voltage over a few minutes. If the battery is bad, you'll see it die quickly, if not instantly.

An alternate method would be to get a set of jumper cables and throw your car's battery onto the bike (without your original battery). The car cannot be running (it will ruin the charging electronics). If the bike starts on the car battery, your bike battery is dead, If the same thing happens as with the bike battery, you've eliminated the battery. It's no guarantee your bike battery is good, but you know the problem isn't in the battery.

Yea you must be right. Had the high beams on for about 10 seconds and the battery dropped 3 volts. I got the bike on craigslist and the guy said the battery was new. Assuming the battery was actually new, then I killed it trying to start the bike. Would the bike have started if the battery was actually new? I just want to hear that engine on, I know it runs well!

Jumper cables.
No running on car.
Hook up and test.

If it runs on the car battery, you should check the rest of the charging system. Let it run for as long as you want.

While it's running, check your charging system. Yellow wires from the stator are AC and will go up and down with the engine RPM. At idle, look for about 15 volts - at higher RPMs you should get more. Check yellow to yellow on all three combinations and see if the numbers are reasonably close. After that, check the output from the voltage regulator and rectifier - you should get 13.5 volt plus or minus about 1. If you get more than 14.5 volts at 4000 RPM,. the R&R is bad and is what probably killed the battery.

Sellers lie all the time. Don't take it personally - he probably had no idea and just told you what you wanted to hear.

Finally, batteries fail all the time, especially if they've been allowed to sit without a charge for a significant (few month) period. Even new batteries can die unceremoniously - it's called a 'bathtub' curve. If you get through the first 90 days, you can expect trouble free operation for a reasonable period of time, until the batteries start to fail from age. A battery tipped its side (even for a few seconds) can also short out internally, which would give you the same thing you are seeing.