Bike won't start? Try this!

So my little WR won't stay running. When you start her up and let the clutch out and get to about 2 mph she just dies. The same thing happens when you just roll in neutral to 2 mph. It does it when the bike is warm, so we know that's not it. There is more than enough fuel in the tank as well. We are going down to the Nutcarcker200 and I really want to be able to ride it this year on my own bike. Please help...


Muddyrabbit found the problem and now she runs great! For all the details on how he did it scroll down. This seems to be a common fault on WR's from posts here and other forums!

Kick stand?

Wouldn't the kick stand kill it as soon as you put it in gear?

Yep.

thus the


Has the bike ever worked perfectly for you?

Can you think of anything that's changed or happened between when it ran fine, and when this problem began?

Crash? Modification? Attempted theft?

Will the bike rev in neutral?

Will the bike rev in gear, but with the clutch pulled in?

Is the bike stock? Any mods at all?
What year is it? 2008 perhaps?

Original owner?

I am the Original owner, it is an 08. Got it brand new in January. We have done some lowering to it and put a different throttle on it, other than that it's stock. Oh, and the bigger tank.

It revs in neutral and in gear, but as soon as it hits 2 mph it dies.

I do hope that noone has tried to steal it, I would have to start kicking some tail!

Since you've changed tank and throttle tube has the bike run flawlessly?


Are you sure the battery has a full charge? Brand new bike but 4 year old battery?

When you turn on the key before you start bike, do you hear the fuel pump priming itself?


What happens if you thumb the starter button when you are rolling down hill faster than 2 mph?

Well we made it to the event and I have Merigolds bike on a jack in my buddy's garage. Now it won't even crank, and the fuel pump does not prime, but the instruments light up. Totaly different from what it was doing at home so I suspect we have multiple problems now.

I wanted to say fuel pump from the very beginning. Just curious, is your kill switch on? Maybe that is why it is not cranking and your not hearing the fuel pump prime.

I even took the kill switch apart to see if it was corroded inside, but yes it is on. I only find one 30 a fuse by the battery and it's good. Are there other fuses I can't find?

Since the fuel pump is not priming any suggestions?

I feel terrible, Mer was so looking forward to riding this event on her bike and I can't seem to do anything about it. So frustrated!

It's a 2008 model right? They are known for crappy fuel pumps. I say start by replacing that. Is there another wr250 available to swap fuel pumps to see if it is the issue?

There are a lot of people here who had their fuel pumps fail when they own the 2008 model. Some symptoms would be a weak sounding fuel priming or none at all. Issues usually arrives when it is hot outside or the bike is hot and the fuel pump can't cool down.

This is link to a thread dedicated to peoples fuel pumps failing

Maybe a bad battery?

FIXT!!!!

It was the infamous electrical plug behind the radiator coming apart, our symptoms just presented different at first.

Muddyrabbit wrote:

FIXT!!!!

It was the infamous electrical plug behind the radiator coming apart, our symptoms just presented different at first.

Any chance you can provide a picture of said plug?

It might help others down the road.

^^ yea.. what motokid said and also what actually happened to the plug? just came off or deteriorated so you had to buy a new one? I want to know just in case the same thing happens to me.

I found several references to the plug coming apart on WR's. It's the plug for the kill switch wires. All the references I found were people who had never had it apart and it seems like there is a tendency for the two plug halves to not be fully clicked together from the factory. Over time they wiggle apart. It is buried behind the radiator in a boot, here's a pic.



You have to unbolt the radiator and a small bracket that covers the bundle of wires to get at it. If your bike is not cranking and the fuel pump does not prime, or it starts then as soon as you move the bike or bars it dies check this plug!

Perhaps a mod can sticky this post in the right place for future reference.

It should be noted that there are at least two seperate sets of symptoms from this problem, and it may switch from one set to the other while you are diagnosing.

1. Meredith's bike first would start just fine, idle, rev, go into gear. As soon as it would start to roll, either by letting the clutch out while in gear or pushing the bike in neutral, the bike would die. At this point the plug was loose enough that it was loosing contact intermittently. As we fiddles with the bike it progressed to symptom set #2, which is the far more common symptoms.

2. When the key is turned on the instruments and lights come on, but the fuel pump does not run it's priming cycle and the starter will not crank. At this point the connector is completely unplugged.

2.

Hey folks, i also had problems with this.

My bike would be hard to start, then one day theu fuel pump didnt come on, and I also got the errorcode for crank sensor. I noticed nothing happened when i tried to reset the error using the killswitch, i also couldnt do the fantest ect, which led me to believe no power was getting to the killswitch. So i cleaned both the kill and starterswitch, and followed the wires down the loom, because of this thread.

I had a corroded wire that was broken right of the plug, also some plugs were heavely corroded.
Some solder and cleaning, and everything was top notch again.

Same problem here. After a petty hard drop, my WRR had all the symptoms of a broken kill switch. Turns out the plug in the kill switch wiring behind the radiator had come loose. Checking these forums meant that was the first place I looked. Saved me many, many hours of troubleshooting. Here's another pic of it helps anyone. The plug, shown here disconnected, is behind a bracket that's behind the radiator. Yes, you need to at least partially remove the radiator to get access to the bracket. Loosen the bracket and you'll find the plug behind it.
I'm sure my problems started because I installed a steering damper which raised the bar and stretched the wiring. Fall caused the kill switch wire to get lodged in a funny way in the bars (long story), which meant no slack in wiring. Hard turn probably pulled the plug apart. Still, with all the people that have had this problem you'd think they'd have shipped the bike with a better plug by now.