A chump is stumped, WR won't start

'08 WR250R, I've had it six months, third owner. It had been fine, motocamped with it to SLAP in May. Ridden at least once a week (I have other bikes also).
Fired it up one morning, pushed it outside, was getting a helmet and it died. Made no unusual noise, was like the key had been turned off. Hasn't started since.
About once out of a dozen attempts it will give one (1) pop/backfire.
Diag mode lists four codes, 30 (lean angle sensor, PO disabled)   33 (primary ignition circuit; swapped out plug pack-no change, and it worked in WR II    41 (lean angle sensor again)    70 (left idling control-should still start and run)
As fate would have it I found another WR for sale two miles from my house (on Facebook no less   )
So I still have one to ride and swap parts from. Reading about the issues with the fuel pump, I really expected it to start with the WR II tank. Nope. And of course II fired up with I's tank.
New spark plug installed of course. Nice blue sparks emitted.
I've done my best a couple of times to 'prime' the cylinder. But none of the mentioned pop/backfires occurred after doing so.
Crank position checked in range (248-372 ohm).
I gather it's not easy to do a compression  check with the auto compression release. But holding a rubber plug over the plug hole there seemed normal resistance.
I can't imagine something catastrophic has happened, I expect the solution to be something simple. I'd sure like to know what it is  

Did you look at the sticky's at the top of this forum?

There is one that you should take a look at:

https://wr250rforum.forumotion.com/t5549-bike-won-t-start-try-this


How many miles on the bike? I have heard of a more than one WRR needed the valves adjusted before 26,000 miles so I would add that to the list of things to check.

Thanks for the reply rs.
And yes, I'd read through the sticky, even investigated the connector by the radiator.
Went through a bunch of google searches for WR won't start (and others).
19k miles on it, it could be the valves need adjustment but I can't imagine that accounting for the way it died and the failure to restart. It ran so well the week before (82 mph on gps, not that I make a habit of doing so).

on2wheels52 wrote:

Thanks for the reply rs.
And yes, I'd read through the sticky, even investigated the connector by the radiator.
Went through a bunch of google searches for WR won't start (and others).
19k miles on it, it could be the valves need adjustment but I can't imagine that accounting for the way it died and the failure to restart. It ran so well the week before (82 mph on gps, not that I make a habit of doing so).

I agree that valves would not explain why is stopped the way it did.

I assume you checked all the hoses for a possible vacuum leak at the throttle body.

My bike gets into this no start mode every so often. In the past I have pulled the lean sensor and ECM and gave them a good blast of WD40 on the connectors. Interestingly enough my tip over sensor never really worked until I gave a good shot of WD40 through a vent hole.

I can tell that it won't start because it will give a 'pop' during the initial start. At that point I go wide open throttle and crank for about 30 seconds or so. Then I let it rest for about 10 or 20 seconds and do the WOT thing again and eventually you will hear the bike wanting to start. I just keep cranking and she fires up.

I have never figured out what causes this but it does it about every 6 months - especially after sitting for awhile without running.

If I ride it on a regular basis this is never a problem.

I did have it do the idle time out thing once (if it idles for more than 20 minutes it will shut itself off) but it started up right after that.

I picked it up from Yamaha of Harrison last week.
They said it was flooded
They put in (another) new spark plug. Certainly worth the $48 they charged.

So you're saying you took it to a dealer, the put in a new spark plug, and it is working fine now or it still is having problems?

Too soon to tell. I've swapped a fair amount of 'stuff' from WR I to WR II. I'm riding (one of them) to the Don't Fall Rally this weekend and didn't feel I had enough time to test ride and swap them back.
All things equal I think I'll be keeping WR I and selling WR II but need to put some miles on it first.

When you flood an FI motor you want to basically hold the Throttle wide open and crank the bike for about 30 seconds or so and then stop for 30 seconds.

Keep repeating this and eventually the bike will begin to sputter and eventually start. Your battery needs to be in decent shape and fully charged for this.

rsteiger wrote:

When you flood an FI motor you want to basically hold the Throttle wide open and crank the bike for about 30 seconds or so and then stop for 30 seconds.

Keep repeating this and eventually the bike will begin to sputter and eventually start.  Your battery needs to be in decent shape and fully charged for this.

For my own future reference, wouldn't this work better with the spark plug removed?

TwelveGaugeSage wrote:

rsteiger wrote:

When you flood an FI motor you want to basically hold the Throttle wide open and crank the bike for about 30 seconds or so and then stop for 30 seconds.

Keep repeating this and eventually the bike will begin to sputter and eventually start.  Your battery needs to be in decent shape and fully charged for this.

For my own future reference, wouldn't this work better with the spark plug removed?

I didn't realize it was possible to flood an FI bike but from experience with carb'ed bikes I'd say yes but it's not worth the effort to pull the plug on the WR.

My WR is sometimes hard to start, usually after sitting a week or more. After a minute or two of cranking it eventually starts.

How confident are you of your battery?  A riding buddy's WR died mid-ride and after an hour of disassembling and checking various things we swapped batteries and sure enough the problem followed the battery.  The battery read 12.9v but wouldn't start the bike.

-morgan

My friend is having the same no start issues, we swapped all the easy stuff from my bike to his bike like fuel tank coil ecu and so forth. We also checked all the sensors in the diagnostic mode and everything there checks out as well. We are pretty stumped at this point, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Same issue here after bike sitting for a while but not always. No logic to it but cranking with throttle WOT usually gets it started. Had a similar issue after re-oiling the filter and then trying to start the bike. It ran the day before. In desperation I partly removed the filter with the door open and away she went. Has started fine ever since with the filter back. I will try this again when you hear that back fire pop and it won't start to see if it lacks air in the intake

jorgo wrote:

Same issue here after bike sitting for a while but not always. No logic to it but cranking with throttle WOT usually gets it started. Had a similar issue after re-oiling the filter and then trying to start the bike. It ran the day before. In desperation I partly removed the filter with the door open and away she went. Has started fine ever since with the filter back. I will try this again when you hear that back fire pop and it won't start to see if it lacks air in the intake

Same thing with mine from time to time.  Once I hear that 'pop' I know I will be spending some time cranking her over at WOT.

Actually going to check the valve clearance soon even though I only have 16,000 miles on the bike - will let you know what I find.

rsteiger wrote:

jorgo wrote:

Same issue here after bike sitting for a while but not always. No logic to it but cranking with throttle WOT usually gets it started. Had a similar issue after re-oiling the filter and then trying to start the bike. It ran the day before. In desperation I partly removed the filter with the door open and away she went. Has started fine ever since with the filter back. I will try this again when you hear that back fire pop and it won't start to see if it lacks air in the intake

Same thing with mine from time to time.  Once I hear that 'pop' I know I will be spending some time cranking her over at WOT.

Actually going to check the valve clearance soon even though I only have 16,000 miles on the bike - will let you know what I find.

+1, I have had the same experience a few times after the bike was sitting.  It just happened to me Thu night: I cranked it until I killed the battery. Usually it starts after 30-60 sec of cranking so I looked deeper:  there was 1/2 or so gal of fuel in the tank and it had been sitting so I filled it with new gas, jumped it from the car and it started right up.  I can only surmise it was old gas.  ~12k miles.

-morgan

The issue is that it will start easily when jump started but needs some throttle to stay running at first then as the bike warms up it can be started by the start button. There are no problems with any of the sensors in the diagnostic mode either.

Mr.Black wrote:

The issue is that it will start easily when jump started but needs some throttle to stay running at first then as the bike warms up it can be started by the start button. There are no problems with any of the sensors in the diagnostic mode either.

That almost sounds like a classic case of tight valve clearances.

Highly unlikely, it only has 15000 km on it. So unless there is something very wrong I doubt valve clearance is the issue.

Well my buddy’s 08 only had 14,000 miles on it and would no longer start. He did not have any clearance on his exhaust valves and ultimately ended up rebuilding the head.

So I would say it is probable - which is one of the reasons why o am going to check mine.

14000 miles is quite a bit more than 15000kms, also my bike has over 20000km and works like a champ even after many years of hard use. The previous owner said he had the valves checked and they were fine which I tend to believe from the marks on the valve cover and bolts.

rsteiger wrote:

Well my buddy’s 08 only had 14,000 miles on it and would no longer start.  He did not have any clearance on his exhaust valves and ultimately ended up rebuilding the head.

So I would say it is probable - which is one of the reasons why o am going to check mine.

What did those miles consist of?  I ask as this is the first I've heard of WRR valve clearance issues.

-morgan (~12,500 miles)

He bought the bike used with about 9,000 miles I believe. Most of his miles were DS riding in the SE US.

If you dig through this forum you will see others that have had clearance issues before the first scheduled valve check. It is an easy thing to check and since I have been having intermittent starting problems along with a failing CCT figure I will go ahead and check it while I am installing my manual CCT.

I have 16,000 miles on mine with mainly DS rides and commuting to work and back (15 miles) - I bought mine new in 2012. Only way to know if it is good is to check it yourself.

rsteiger wrote:

He bought the bike used with about 9,000 miles I believe.  Most of his miles were DS riding in the SE US.

If you dig through this forum you will see others that have had clearance issues before the first scheduled valve check.  It is an easy thing to check and since I have been having intermittent starting problems along with a failing CCT figure I will go ahead and check it while I am installing my manual CCT.

I have 16,000 miles on mine with mainly DS rides and commuting to work and back (15 miles) - I bought mine new in 2012.  Only way to know if it is good is to check it yourself.

Interesting info, thanks.

-morgan

fwiw, I've been putting some miles on WR #1 without any issues and have been swapping the accessories back to it. I would have done that sooner but I had two fall rallies on my schedule that I wanted to attend with a WR and there wasn't time to both get confidence in #1 and do the swapping (retired guys don't always accomplish much in a day).
I haven't decided if the FMF pipe that came with #2 will make the transition. Anyway, so far so good. I expect to have a WR for sale before long.