Hitchcocks Forum

Hi
I have a electra x that refuses to start when cold
I have fitted a new spark plug and battery is fully charged.
The only way is to remove and warm the plug. Once fitted it starts instantly.
The battery soon seems to run out of charge when trying to start the bike.
Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

difficulty starting is often a pilot jet problem

I have just been having problems which turned out to be the coil. See the thread "Could it be the coil" for comments.

You say the battery runs out of puff quickly, battery is probably on the way out and when cranking on the starter your battery is probably dropping down to 8 volts or less making it much harder for the spark. Charge the battery up and see if it will kick start, probably find it will

There is a chance that your battery may only be holding a small amount of charge (F**ked), even though a charger will indicate fully charged. This would lead to it running down quick when starting.

I guess you checked that you have the correct plug. You didn't get it from ebay did you, seems there have been a few fake NGK fakes going around that don't work very well.

While Norm and Alan have probably covered starting, the issue with your battery is that it sounds like it's on its last legs, still OK for ignition and lightss but struggling to cope with the demands of the electric start. How old is it? A new AGM battery ought to cope much better than the original lead acid battery if that's what your Electra is still using. If you still have the original metal spark plug cap I'd also bin that and fit an NGK.

Regards,

A.

Sorry, Scalyback posted while I was still typing! A.

I had the same symptoms with my electra X. I ended up changing the battery which helped for a while but went back to the way it was. I eventually changed the plug cap for an ngk one and it starts great even after standing outside for 2-3 weeks in all weather. I even tried an iridium plug which didn't last long so went back to a normal one

Trouble is a duff battery might show 12v when it's been charged but as soon as you put a load on it the voltage will fall right off. If you have a multimeter you can see this easily.
The issue with warming the plug to get it to start might just be a new plug required.

A charged battery in good condition should show a voltage in the 12.5-13.2 range. 12 volts would indicate a "duff" battery.