Jump Start from another bike?
 

Hi all,

Was out on the trail a while ago when the battery died, with no kick start, and wet conditions it was very hard to push start. Was thinking would I be able to "jump start" my bike from another bike with its engine running, by simply running some leads to the battery on the donor bike?

Thanks

i dont see why not

Of course. Make a small jumper cable set and keep it on the bike.

Works great, just remember if you jumpstart off of a car or truck, make sure the car or truck is NOT running....just use the battery power from it.

I've never heard of such a thing. Why on earth not let the other engine run? If you're not careful here you will have two dead engines.

Oh, a kickstart is not terribly expensive to add. Batteries can fail as you have discovered and what if you're alone?

I made a smaller set for the Grand Canyon trip for the ST 1300 and the BMW 1150, but for the dual sports I have a compact direct 12v accessory plug in set. It works great! I ran the battery down on the wifes bike and then plugged in the cable, let it run for 5 minutes, and then hit the starter button and she fired right up!

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Back in the mid 80's, I had a friend with a dying battery on his car. I jump started his rig and it blew some circuitry in my vehicle's alternator...twice. The parts shop guy told me to have my vehicle off when jump starting, immediately disconnect one of the jumper wires when the jumped rig started, and that I would not be getting another alternator on warranty as I was causing the failure by jumping the other car. I followed his advise and never had another failure.

You want the vehicle off when jump starting a motorcycle from a car/truck....your motorcycle is not designed to handle 14.5 volts through the starter circuit. i have seen it blow out every lightbulb on the bike and cause other issues. i am a service advisor at a large multiline dealer...yam.kaw.suz.hond. and have seen this cause problems many times. Not every time however....so please don't write back about how you have done it a "million" times...I don't really care...just trying to give good advice.

Aren't you supposed to ground the negative jumper to a solid ground and not through the "donor" battery terminal ?

I'm no electrician but i'm pretty sure NOT doing that is how people burn **** up.

You're right but it's to avoid the possibility of having the spark of the hookup/disconnect igniting the gasses given off by the battery.