South West Bikers | Motorcycle Forum

long time lurker but first time poster so hello to all.
I have a problem with my son's VL 125 which won't start. The battery is only a couple of months old and is fully charged but when I try to start it, there's a click from under starter solenoid but nothing else.

The voltage between the -ve terminal on the battery and the live side of the solenoid is 12.5V. When I press the starter button however, the solenoid clicks but the voltage between the battery -ve and the other side of the solenoid is less than 6V. Should I be seeing all 12.5V through the solenoid and does this mean that the solenoid is porked (good) or the starter motor (not so good).

Cheers

Mark

sounds like the battery to me.

Have u tried bumping the bike ? Might get it running.

It bumps starts really easily (which is fortunate because we were parked on the side of the A303 when it happened) and runs fine once it's up and running.

I'd agree with you about the battery except that it's only a couple of months old and has been fully charged using a trickle charger. I've also tried jump starting it from my VL800.

Sounds like it could be the starter solenoid.

Have you tried bypassing the solenoid with a piece of heavy wire.(Positive side of battery to output side of solenoid,starter motor side).
On contact, motor should spin up & with ignition turned on, should start.

Worked for me when my old xj550 solenoid packed up years ago.I always made sure i carried a piece of wire with me for emergencies.

Thanks to all who replied.
Turned out that the solenoid was fine - the voltage drop occured on both contacts when the ignition was cranked and the voltage drop between contacts was zero which meant it could only be the starter motor or the wiring from the solenoid to starter. Disconnected the starter and there was zero voltage drop so narrowed it down to the starter motor.

Fortunately the helpful folk at Bitza Bikes in Taunton had a used one which only took a few minutes to swap out and it now works fine. Hopefully this may be useful to others in the future.

Cheers

Mark