Thread: Chattering Starter Relay

My 2002 GP1200R wont crank over, but I do get a chattering sound from the electronics box. I think it's the starter relay chattering (guess). Does anyone have any ideas? Is it more likely chattering due to the starter not wanting to turn, or a bad relay?

Murray

Remove and clean battery terminals and leads. Check both ends of power and earth leads are tight.

Charge the battery now for a great summer season.

Yep battery. I took the battery out first and shoved it on the charger, which said it was fully charged. Idiot lights indicated that anyhow. I grabbed my brand new jumper pack, you know, the $50 ones and attached that direct to the freshly cleaned pos/neg cables. Nothing.

Upshot was, battery was completely dead and so was my brand new jumper pack. The chattering relay should have given it away I guess. Hindsight is 20/20. Put it into the shop and they worked it straight out for me. Of course now I am waiting on parts to complete the service, trim cables and the like. Expensive lesson, but at least they found it straight away.

I was convinced that I had a stuffed or stuck starter motor

This is what is called a machine gunning relay

there is the power to throw the relay in
when it does this it puts power to the starter there isnt enough power to crank the engine so the battery voltage drops
the voltage gets so low that there isnt enough to hold the starter relay in
so it drops out , this now takes the load of the battery and so this allows the voltage to come up again
this then throws in the relay again and the whole thing goes over and over


giving the machine gunning sound