F3T died rapidly after sitting 2 months, now no start - any suggestions?

[Dracos]

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm looking for some potential ideas for my no start situation. I had knee surgery 2 months ago and fired the bike up for the first time since then to move it a little bit. It cranked over strongly and fired right up. It started running a little rough and it died after ~30 seconds. I started it again; it cranked over strongly; and began running immediately; but it only ran for ~10 seconds. Tried again, ran for 1-2 seconds and died; subsequent attempts, it tried to go a little bit; and now, no response. The engine still cranks smoothly, but no firing whatsoever. I added a bottle of HEET to the fuel, as I thought maybe the gas had managed to get some water in it somehow, but the fuel is only 2 months old. I've attempted to start it repeatedly since, with no success. I've pulled body panels to pursue checking the fuel, spark, etc. The fuel pump pressurizes the system, and it puts out strong flow to the return line. I'm still figuring out the jenga to get to the spark plugs. Any suggestions?

[CloverHillCrawler]

Check the voltage on your battery?

[Dracos]

Check the voltage on your battery?

Battery voltage is fine, starter will spin the engine over at full speed.

[Freddy]

Spray starting fluid into the air intake while cranking. If it fires momentarily, it's got spark but not fuel.

[Peter Aawen]

Battery voltage is fine, starter will spin the engine over at full speed.

You might think it's fine, but these Spyder things are EXTEMELY power hungry, and there have been others where the starter would crank seemingly strongly but there just wasn't enough 'green steam/battery grunt juice' to get/keep all the computers running - so they wouldn't start properly & even if they did &/or the engine did, the computers wouldn't let the engine run for very long... Sound familiar??

In my experience with a few of these things doing this, if you load test the battery & the voltage drops below 12 v (ie, NOT just the 'usually accepted' 10.5 - 11v! ) then the battery is not up to it for a Spyder and this sorta thing can & does happen! At the very least, put your battery on a proper charger for about 8 hours before you try again, but I'd still suggest load testing it.

Spray starting fluid into the air intake while cranking. If it fires momentarily, it's got spark but not fuel.

Altho it could well be just 'bad fuel' or fuel that's gone off over time - 2 months is basically too long to leave any gas with ANY Ethanol in it sitting; even if it hasn't clagged up the filter &/or pump & injection system internals, it's not really 'gas' now, even with/after a good dose of HEET! And while it might look/sound like the pump is doing its job, these Injection Systems require pretty good quality and High Pressure gas coming thru the lines! So, if the pump does still happen to be 'working', it just might not be working well enough! Besides, if the pump is even vaguely working now, what you've very likely effectively done with all that cranking and attempting to start stuff, is to pump questionable fuel All the way to the injectors, so now you'll probably need to fill the tank with fresh gas (maybe suck/pump out all the old gas first?! ) and then holding the throttle wide open (so the engine won't start - it's a factory installed 'lock-out' for just this type of circumstance! ) while you crank the starter for about a minute, possibly more, in order to purge all the cruddy gas from the system & pump good stuff up to the injectors!!

Then, once that's done & you're pretty sure you've got good gas up to the injectors (remember, if it has good gas in it, the engine will run for a minute or two on just the gas in the fuel lines!) you can try starting the motor again with no throttle - but again, do make sure your battery is truly up to it BEFORE you try again, and not just up to cranking the starter over, even if it does do that seemingly strongly!


Just Sayin'

[2dogs]

Spray starting fluid into the air intake while cranking. If it fires momentarily, it's got spark but not fuel.

Good suggestion however, too much starting fluid can damage your engine. Use starting fluid very very sparingly on that little high compression powerhouse.

[BLUEKNIGHT911]

Do you have a "battery Maintainer"? If not, get one and put it on it for three or four days. Good luck! ... Mike

[Mikey]

If the HEET didn't help any, I would take the gas out of her and give it a fresh tank of good gas! Then charge the battery up and start again! Good luck!

Ps: I would give that gas a good shot of Seafoam!!

[Snowbelt Spyder]

+1 what Mikey said. With the right kind of weather, it doesn’t take too long at all, for ethanol fuel to absorb enough moisture to be un-runnable. Before you go too crazy with tearing into it, drain and refill first. Not too long ago, somebody else had this same problem. Fresh fuel and a bit of Seafoam was all it needed.

[CloverHillCrawler]

+1 on the Seafoam

[CloverHillCrawler]

I know it sounds stupid, but stupid is as stupid does.

I was really tired from working overnight a couple of months ago, went out to a meet and greet and stopped to take a pee on the way home.

Bike would not start after I came back from visiting nature. I troubleshooted for while and did a facepalm after getting home, getting some sleep, and when I woke up realized I had hit the kill switch with my big gloves when getting off the bike and forgot to check it.

That lesson cost me a $100 tow. So check your kill switch.

[Mikey]

Yup, think we all have been there!! My grand sons are famous for pulling that on me!

[djh3]

On the voltage/battery thought. The CAN buss stuff is/can be very picky about how much voltage it can get when needed. Although the battery has enough juice to turn starter over, the electrical systems like steady voltage source to the ECM ignition while this is going on. The Victory's have been known for this, but also I saw it when teaching automotive a couple years back.

[CloverHillCrawler]

Dracos, I am right up the road from you in Frederick, if you are still having issues and want another set of eyes to look at it with you I can swing by this weekend and see if we can find anything.

[Dracos]

You might think it's fine, but these Spyder things are EXTEMELY power hungry, and there have been others where the starter would crank seemingly strongly but there just wasn't enough 'green steam/battery grunt juice' to get/keep all the computers running - so they wouldn't start properly & even if they did &/or the engine did, the computers wouldn't let the engine run for very long... Sound familiar??

In my experience with a few of these things doing this, if you load test the battery & the voltage drops below 12 v (ie, NOT just the 'usually accepted' 10.5 - 11v! ) then the battery is not up to it for a Spyder and this sorta thing can & does happen! At the very least, put your battery on a proper charger for about 8 hours before you try again, but I'd still suggest load testing it.



Altho it could well be just 'bad fuel' or fuel that's gone off over time - 2 months is basically too long to leave any gas with ANY Ethanol in it sitting; even if it hasn't clagged up the filter &/or pump & injection system internals, it's not really 'gas' now, even with/after a good dose of HEET! And while it might look/sound like the pump is doing its job, these Injection Systems require pretty good quality and High Pressure gas coming thru the lines! So, if the pump does still happen to be 'working', it just might not be working well enough! Besides, if the pump is even vaguely working now, what you've very likely effectively done with all that cranking and attempting to start stuff, is to pump questionable fuel All the way to the injectors, so now you'll probably need to fill the tank with fresh gas (maybe suck/pump out all the old gas first?! ) and then holding the throttle wide open (so the engine won't start - it's a factory installed 'lock-out' for just this type of circumstance! ) while you crank the starter for about a minute, possibly more, in order to purge all the cruddy gas from the system & pump good stuff up to the injectors!!

Then, once that's done & you're pretty sure you've got good gas up to the injectors (remember, if it has good gas in it, the engine will run for a minute or two on just the gas in the fuel lines!) you can try starting the motor again with no throttle - but again, do make sure your battery is truly up to it BEFORE you try again.
Just Sayin'

I appreciate the feedback. In the efforts to not completely kill the battery, I hooked up to my car charger and ran on the higher amp “maintenance” setting, 14v with enough grunt to spin a larger engine. I will try some sparing use of starter fluid, and then swap out fuel if I get any kick out of it. Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

[Dracos]

Dracos, I am right up the road from you in Frederick, if you are still having issues and want another set of eyes to look at it with you I can swing by this weekend and see if we can find anything.

I don’t know that I’d be opposed to that. I’ll send you a PM. Thank you.

[CloverHillCrawler]

I'll PM you my phone # so you can text me. It will get to me quicker and if I am away from my computer.

[Jetfixer]

Drain the fuel, put in a tank of fresh non-ethanol fuel. Give it time to get through the filter, lines, & injectors. I think you'll solve your problem. The fuel may only be 2 months old to you, but how long might it have been sitting in the gas stations' tank?