Total Motorcycle Community Forums

First of all I am a riding novice. This bike is the first bike I have ever owned and I have very little mechanic prowess. Now, my problem is that I bought a Honda Rebel 85, and I took it to a shop. The shop cleared it, but two weeks ago it simply stopped turning on. I figured it was the battery because a fellow rider once helped me on the road. So I went and bought a new battery and it worked fine for 2 weeks. Today it did the same thing. I can jumpstart it on Neutral a couple of times but it keeps dying on me. Also today, another fellow rider told me about the spark plugs so I will try to change these as well. But I'm still weary of this because yesterday It worked fine. Perhaps some pointer that the forum member can guide me to check. Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you for your time

Do you keep it higher in the rev range? On those you need to to keep the battery charged. Don't be afraid to wring the throttle on that, it's not like a car where it's happy at lower RPMs.
I think on that bike it's 3500 RPMs where it starts to actually charge the battery instead of drain it.

It sounds to me like it might be time for a new Regulator/Rectifier (I had to replace mine last summer),or maybe a Stator. These fail suddenly, and prevent the battery from being charged. That leaves the battery trying to run everything until its completely drained. It could also be just a loose connection, or a broken or shorted wire in the harness. You'd need a shop manual and an electrical multimeter to find the problem.

+1 on the regulator/rectifier, especially if you recently installed a new battery. Wrider has a good point, too, in that you need to ride the bike at higher speeds and longer distances to ensure the battery is kept fully charged, but it is a good idea to buy a battery charger designed for motorcycles, such as the Battery Tender, and keep it plugged in whenever you are not using the bike.

Wrider wrote: I think on that bike it's 3500 RPMs where it starts to actually charge the battery instead of drain it.

Wow that's high! You would think in this day and age, the break even point would be lower.

Fortunately most bikes today break even at idle or just above. The worse one ever was my '78 CB550K that I swear it discharged at anything less than a highway ride.

HYPERR wrote:

Wrider wrote: I think on that bike it's 3500 RPMs where it starts to actually charge the battery instead of drain it.

Wow that's high! You would think in this day and age, the break even point would be lower.

Fortunately most bikes today break even at idle or just above. The worse one ever was my '78 CB550K that I swear it discharged at anything less than a highway ride.

Haha yeah those are notorious for that!
Smaller bikes like the TTRs, Rebels, and those ilk tend to break even pretty high, but it just depends on the bike... The Ninja 250 breaks even below idle for example. Any modern bike breaks even below idle too.

These days? The Rebel started life in about 1978 as the 185cc Twinstar. Honda just boosted it to 200cc and then 250cc and restyled it a couple of times. It is certainly oldschool.

We use rebels in our BRC classes and they spend most of their lives at idle. I rarely if ever having a charging problem.

Charge up your battery then head here (http://www.electrosport.com/technical-r ... center.php) and use the fault finding guide. That should pinpoint the culprit.