Ever had your ride drive ya nutz!?

84 GPZ 750.

I know, the easy answer: below 40 degrees is just not riding temp. But I can handle it -- did handle it. Then she didn't want to fire. Poor old bike.

Battery had a cell or two dead, changed it, not much better. Find the plug caps bad, changed them. Cleaned connections - got 12.5 and 14.3 VDC at idle and above, respectively. Not great on idle, but not bad -- I don't idle much anyway. It'll crank and fire over 40 degrees and run like a raped ape.

So I figure stator and regulator are good to go. Plugs look good, tan burn. Even with bad plug caps? Coils have to be OK, two of my caps wouldn't even read and they would still fire enough to run fine. Strange? Yes. But a fact.

It will fire and shut off just about as quick now when the temps are down. Battery is golden, until I crank it down. Starter squeals when cold. After that initial fire and shutoff, I can't get her to refire. Cranks hard. OK, I think, water in the gas, even though this is the second tank from different good suppliers -- I open the drain plugs and they flow good. Not icy. Shoot. Battery charger reads full charge as soon as I hook it up. Not that.

Noticed the display center give me a warning flash and a flicker the last couple of times she cranked and ran -- need to get closer on that. Maybe the ICU -- now that I write it all down, that seems to be a next step. Igniton control unit. Hmmmm.

And after looking around, I'm gonna rewire this bike.

Or just stop riding below 40 degrees. But that is no fun. Those carbs LOVE the cold air!

Thanks for letting me blow off steam, and any comments or "I had that happens" would be appreciated.

Louie

Sounds to me like you got the kzrider blues :silly: I think your crazy for riding in 40 degree weather by the way. Probably more like 20 when you factor in wind chill. I store my bike in the winter - won't let a drop of rain touch it.

I think we all need to vent are frustrations every now and then. I popped 15 20amp fuses(OMG, 8 bucks in fuses at Autozone, I could of re-chromed my key chain for that much!) before I finally solved my electrical problem - and I'm more frustrated at myself because I caused the problem in the process of solving a previous problem. Doh! Heck, I'm a novice do-it- yourselfer and just try to learn as I go. What I'm getting at is you got to keep a good sense a humor when the u know what hits the fan. So be strong and trade the kz for a Harley! J/K.

i ride mine in cold weather all the time. does the choke work ok? if so, it has to be an ignition problem. the choke would be a problem for cold weather starting if its not working properly. it would crank and crank but not start.

Do what I'm going to do. Move to Arizona:woohoo: ride all year round. I think it was in the upper 70's today.:silly:

I have ridden this year down to 22 degrees with no problem -- until this started acting up.

And I have been to Pheonix, interesting place. But I will take my Blue Ridge Parkway, Dragon, and the other roads that I know are not so populated for entertainment. Canyons are neat, roadrunners are REALLY neat, and the Hells Angels scare the crap out of my Japanese riding butt.

Choke comes on fine -- as a matter of fact, after I changed the plug caps, it would light off, come up on the choke, and almost as soon as it got around 2.5K Rpms, it would just die. I got one chance at it each morning, then I would come home after 8-9 hours, and it would fire fine -- and be 15 degrees warmer outside.

I agree on the ignition. I am currently riding the gas out of it (50's and 60's temps this week) then I can pull the petcock easier AND check the coils out. Try to eliminate two things at once. I'm also looking at cutting a quarter of an inch off of the plug wires at the caps (and maybe the coils) to give it a more fresh contact point.

Thanks for the replies, and I will let you know what I find soon, maybe this weekend.

Tried the above, no luck: coils read good (3.5 and 12.5K), drained and refilled with 93 octane, cleaned the ICU connections.

Interseting thing this morning: put the battery charger on for kicks. Reads charged right off, but it is a maintainer, so I keep it on. What will warming the battery up do this morning?

Next I think I'll get into the starter, system, maybe dragging the amps down quick. Also a recommendation to adjust my fuel mixture screws (?) has come up: when I drilled the caps, they were like 1 to 1.5 turns in, vice my 2.

Grrr.