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scootersage said:

I would jump the relay to make sure the starter turned. Then I would pull the coil leads off of the relay and check with a meter to see if I had 12 there when I hit the button. The other side of the coil goes to ground I think through the safety switches. You could put 12 volts to the 2 leads on the relay. It is the 2 that are embedded in epoxy and are not connected together. I don't have a 650 but had trouble with a old road star and they seem to share some parts. Good Luck.

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scootersage said:

I would jump the relay to make sure the starter turned. Then I would pull the coil leads off of the relay and check with a meter to see if I had 12 there when I hit the button. The other side of the coil goes to ground I think through the safety switches. You could put 12 volts to the 2 leads on the relay. It is the 2 that are embedded in epoxy and are not connected together. I don't have a 650 but had trouble with a old road star and they seem to share some parts. Good Luck.

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Axeman88 said:

If the system voltage is pulled to low voltage during cranking, and comes back up afterwards, that's likely high resistance somewhere in the circuit. Could be inside the battery in which case almost certainly needs replacing, but could also be in the starter motor circuit, at the cable connections or in the heavy cables going from the battery through the relay to the starter. The ground path for the starter can also be high resistance, or the Batt - to frame cable or connections. A power cable can look normal but be corroded under the insulation.

Diagnosing the starter motor circuit is a good place to apply a method called voltage drop testing, as was alluded to by lesblank above. One just goes around the circuit, testing individual sections, ( while cranking, but don't crank continuously, move the clips, crank briefly, and write down the measurement on a crude sketch). The voltage around the circuit adds up to the 12.7 volts or so that should be on the battery before starting. When you find the element that is dropping the most voltage, that is where resistance has developed.

This is a pretty good description of voltage drop testing, with some diagrams of where to clip in to test what part of the circuit: Voltage Drop Test: Testing the Starter Circuit
Even the metal/metal battery and ground connections are suspects.

By the way, 12.0 Volts means a battery is half dead. It should read quite a bit more. Voltages on the chart are the "rest" voltage, several hours after being taken OFF a charger, so there's no surface charge present, but not under load.

View attachment 126882

And even higher for AGM sealed type:
View attachment 126883

Good Luck!

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Mwhannon said:

Hey all. Working on a 2005 650 Vstar. Bike is a friends who got tired of messing with it.
Issue:
Starter solenoid clicks when trying to start but starter never fires.

I get a voltage drop from 12 to 8vdc when i try and start.
any help is most appreciated.

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