Well I've about given up on this thing. I have a 2001 Suzuki Savage (about 16k miles) that I just bought as my first road bike. It ran fine for the first two weeks I had it. It even did a 60 mile trip on the freeway.

My bad luck all started when I accidentally left it in park (dirtbikes don't tend to have this issue...) while I was at work. All told it was in park for about 4 and a half hours. It completely killed the battery so I jumped it with a car and it started right up.

I rode the bike after that for about 45 minutes with no problem. I went to dinner for about 20 minutes, bike started up and ran fine after that as well. Took another break from riding for about 2 hours and then got back on and it worked fine.

I let it sit over night and the next morning decided the weather was good so I was going to ride it to work. It kept turning over but wouldn't start. I didn't have time and left it there.

That's when I came on here looking for information and I didn't find anything really. I did however find out about the cam chain tensioner issue this bike is apparently notorious for and petcock issues.

I decided to change the spark plug. I really had no other ideas. I changed it and still had the same results. So after changing it I decided to give it more gas and I got it to run! As long as I didn't try to idle it and as long as I gave it a buttload of gas I could get it to start and stay running. Let go of the gas for too long and it would die.

I rode it over to my friends to check out the cam chain because I noticed the noise. My cam chain adjuster and definitely came out completely... So I took a bullet and bought the verslavy and just installed it tonight. I just got it all put back together and new oil put in and went to start it up and I got nothing! So I hooked up a battery tender/charger/starter thing and tried again.

It will go "thump thump thump" as long as I have the starter running and the gas turned a little. It starts to sound like it will go but if you let off the starter it just dies. It actually almost sounds like it is running until you let the starter off.

I'm back to having absolutely no clue what to do. The battery as far as I can tell is fine (it's not stock), it's a brand new spark plug, and the air filter looked pretty dang clean. I even just rechecked the gap on the plug tonight to make sure it was correct. This is quite frustrating especially since this bike needs to be out of my friends garage A.S.A.P. since his land lady is getting ticked of it being in there (plus I found out he is moving in a week). Any ideas?

Would it not start even with the battery charger set to the jumpstart mode? ( think it's 125v 12amp but I can't remember)

I guess I don't have much to lose but I figured it would at least start with it set to jumpstart mode. The lights and starter all seem to be fine even without the charger but I put it on to try and rule it out. I've never really understood electronics though...

If all mechanical issues have been thoroughly checked out, it's time to check electrical.

Try the ether or starting fluid 1st and let us know the results.

PROVE your battery is good. Dont believe it is, dont hope it is. Have it tested. This is a frustrating bear trap. It can be spinning over fast enough to start, BUT, they wont,, A slightly shabby battery can be the whole problem. I know ya said it was running,, have ya added gas? If so, is there a chance the gas was old? Maybe you should check fuel level.,.you mite be sitting right on the line.. flip it to rserve,.,

Alright so here's what I have done so far.

1. Took the battery to O'Reillys and they tested it. It came back as a good battery. Is this a reliable test? Are the results trustworthy?

2. Tried the starter fluid in the carb. It didn't seem to do anything all. Infact I think it made it bog down a little even.

3. Tried prime, reserve and normal petcock modes. No luck. I do have gas in the tank at least a gallon. Should I put more in?

Here is a video of what it sounds like/how it is acting. The sound isn't very good unfortunately but if you watch you can tell that when the starter is engaged it sounds like it is running. The second I let go it dies. Around the 30 second mark I let go and it kept running for 3 seconds or so. That's the longest it has ran after letting go of the starter since I did all this repair work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RKI6FsNeoY&feature=youtu.be

It looked fairly clean as far as I could tell but I've never seen what the original was supposed to look like.

Izzy wrote on 04/15/14 at 19:26:45:


Did you let the starter fluid evaporate a little before you hit the starter? You want a couple second shot, let it evaporate a little so its in a gas form, not a 5-10 second blast of liquid into the cylinder. It sounds like you have spark because it ran there for a couple seconds, even if it was crappy.  

mhart731 wrote on 04/15/14 at 21:36:53:


I had the same problem after I changed my cam chain tensioner. Wouldn't start. I ended up using starter fluid and got it going. It ran like crap and I put new gas in it and it ran much better.  When it was really cold I needed starter fluid to get it going even with the choke.  Another thing that happened was it smoked really bad for a few minutes after starting for a couple weeks after I did the  work, then that cleared up. Eventually I didn't need the starter fluid to get it going in the mornings, just the normal choke routine. No clue why.