[K1300s13]

I left my '13 K1300s key in the park position overnight and the battery died. I started to charge it but voltage was pretty low at 2.7V and I had another battery on hand. New battery is a Bikemaster lithium and I'm wondering if that is causing a problem. I'm continuing to charge the old battery and if voltage comes up I'll swap it back in. But I'd like to go with the new lithium battery if I can. Any suggestions?

Bike cranks normally but won't kick over. Display looks just as it did before the battery problem. A service indicator came on recently but that didn't cause any problems previously. I only have a little over 2K miles on the bike.

 

[cstumpf750]

When is the last time it ran?

Does it have fuel?

Do you have access to a GS-911?

I doubt it is the new lithium battery.

 

[K1300s13]

Thanks for your response. Last drove it Thursday, when I parked it I left the lights on and that drained the battery. When I turned key on got no display and battery voltage was down to 2.7 volts. Low gas indicator had just come on but there's still gas in it. With new battery display comes on and starter cranks but it won't fire. I just got a GS-911 but waiting for the adapter cable to use it.

 

[Beech]

Just reading about lithium batteries the other day thinking about using one. It mentioned to fully charge a new battery using a Lithium battery charger then install it. (this is the same for AGM batteries also. This lets you get the last 20% capacity in a lead battery)
Going back to your 2.7 volt battery, the majority of battery maintenance chargers will not start charging a battery that low. You need rescue abilities. You can cheat by hooking up your charger to the very low battery and in parallel flash the dead battery with a 9 volt battery or even another 12 volt battery so the charger sees a higher voltage and kicks in.
You need to separate the two issues you have and see where it gets you.

 

[Moto Vasya 21]

check and clean the relay

 

[K1300s13]

The new lithium battery was fully charged, I checked it with a meter, 13-plus volts on it. Trying a different charger on the old battery, this one indicates it is charging and getting 11-plus volts while it's connected so that's good. The first one showed a green power indicator on but not the charging indicator, only got around 3 volts with it connected so that wasn't working. Also, starter is turning normally so not thinking relay, it just won't fire up.

One more thing, I bought the bike used in 2021 so wasn't sure how old the installed battery was. But it's dated 2020 so not that old.

 

[Corkboy]

Ok, I'll row in with my 2 cents worth. If it were me.....
First thing to do is step back and think.
It was running fine then you drained the battery.
You swapped out the battery for a new one. There is no issue with it being a lithium - it's just a battery. It either has enough power or not. I'm running a lithium in mine at the moment.
We know the new battery is OK as it turns over the starter motor (normally - as per your first post). This is the highest drain on the battery, so I assume it's good. The fact that the instrument cluster lights up is another indication.
So, the only change is the draining of the battery and swapping out to a new one. This leads me to believe the possible sources of the issue are
1. The draining of the battery caused the ECU to log a fault code, which is still present and causing the bike not to fire. And this code isn't being reset with the presence of the new battery, but must be cleared by a GS911 or motoscan. I find this unusual as it would mean that any battery drain or swap would leave you stranded on the side of the road. I also didn't need to reset anything when I swapped out my battery, nor did I get any fault codes. but I swapped out a good battery for a good one, so not exactly the same conditions. So hold on this one for a while.
2. When you swapped out the battery, you either disturbed or didn't reconnect a lead. I know (from putting in the hot swap mod) that there is a live from the battery to the starter relay (which is the relay pictured above by Moto Vasya 21.) This relay is fine as the motor is turning over as per post 1. I don't know if there is another lead from the battery to power the rest of the bike, but that's the area I'd check first. After all, that is the only area disturbed between the bike working and not working.
3. Outlier possibilitiy. Leaving the bike on "park", i.e. with the key set to steering lock and lights on, caused something to burn out/overload that is not affecting starting. Unlikely but a possible point.
4. Second outlier, there is no gas in the tank Unlikely, as you said there is, but I'd doublecheck. If it's cranking over and you're not getting a spark, and there is gas in the tank, and the injectors are spraying, then you should get a pretty strong smell of fuel from the exhaust.
5. One that just struck me, You didn't by any chance switch the Kill switch off. Do check as that would be a laugh (and you wouldn't be the first). If I remember correctly, this would allow the motor to turn over but not fire.
5.a After reading a few posts, it looks like the kill switch is prone to failure on the K1300's especially if it has been left out in the Sun. Try turning it on and off a few times with the ignition on, to see if the fuel pump can be heard cycling.

So, before I'd go down the rabbit-hole of taking things apart and/or swapping components, I'd take a good long hard look at what was disturbed, i.e. the battery area, and check that everything is as it should be. Then I'd check with a gs911 to see any error codes.
Then, and only then, would I start taking things apart as you could cause more problems.


Other points - a service indicator, i.e. "your bike is due a service in <date>" will not stop the bike from working.

Do come back and let us know how you get on.

 

[K1300s13]

Good news! I just went and tried it again with the new lithium battery in. This time, I worked the throttle a lot as I was trying to start it. It kicked over and sputtered a bit then died. Did that a couple of times. Third try it started and stayed running! Prior to that it wasn't firing up at all. Tried about 5 times and it never kicked over at all, just starter cranking.

Wondering why that happened. Guess I'm concerned about getting stranded if it happens again. It needs gas (showing 58 miles range left) so I'll take a short ride to the gas station and go from there...

 

[WPV]

Did you reset the throttle after installing the battery? Just a passing thought when you mentioned twisting the throttle.

 

[K1300s13]

No, I didn't know something like that would be needed. Is there a procedure to reset the throttle? I was just thinking the battery replacement reset something on the computer for fuel mapping and that was the problem. Maybe it reset to some kind of base settings, but I'm at altitude here near Denver (about 5000 ft) and the base settings wouldn't allow it to start. When I worked the throttle a lot, it made it remap and get set right so it started again.

 

[WPV]

The throttle re-calibration is pretty easy and required when you disconnect the battery or lose battery voltage for whatever reason. I am working from memory, but others will correct me. Turn the ignition on. Rotate the throttle full range three times slowly. Turn the ignition off. You may have inadvertently re-calibrated the throttle and not realized it. I think it just gets a handshake between the ECU and the throttle position sensor. Others here smarter than I will correct me or add to the idea. Glad to hear you are running again.

 

[Corkboy]

TPS reset

TPS Reset

t.p.s. - throttle position sensor. to reset it: 1. turn key to "on" but don't start. 2. rotate throttle completely three times (from fully closed to fully open). 3. turn key off. hope this helps. When you all do this, do you let the throttle snap back, or manually control the open and closed...

www.k-bikes.com

The battery replacement will clear all the closed-loop adaption maps, so the fact that you're at 5000ft could have something to do with it. IIRC, closed loop is that part of the map that operates below around 4000 rpm, and on a steady throttle.
You might find that the bike acts erratically, i.e. weird fuelling, until the map is relearnt by the ecu. It does this by getting the various signals from the O2 sensor.

BikeBoy.org - Fuel Injection Open Loop and Closed Loop

 

[WPV]

Just an added note. I have a small 12v power source. If I am going to be doing anything that involves disconnecting a battery terminal, I connect this low amp 12v power to the battery leads. When the project is finished and battery leads are reconnected, I disconnect the power source. The cycle never senses a power loss while I am working.

 

[cstumpf750]

I find this whole issue odd. I’ve left my bike without a battery for weeks at a time and this winter it had no battery until last week and it cranked a once and then started. I think Cowboy is onto the issue with altitude. I’m at sealevel.

 

[K1300s13]

I was thinking that way too, like maybe the default fuel settings will start the bike at lower altitudes but don't work so well at higher altitude and it takes a while to remap fuel settings.

However, I went to ride the bike to get gas and it stalled out a few blocks from my house. Wouldn't start again. This time felt like it just ran out of gas. I was going by the range indicator that showed 44 miles left. Looked in the tank and tried to slosh gas around; didn't seem to be any. Walked back to the house and got a gas can and put some in. That started it up and I went to gas station. So don't know if battery replacement screwed up the range reading or if maybe something's wrong with the float (assuming there's a float in this thing). I did lay it down soon after buying it so that could have affected the float.

Anyway, seems like it was way lower on gas than I thought. Maybe lack of gas affected it more than the fuel settings being reset. Who knows. After filling it up, I took a chance and rode up to the mountains. Ran great for a trip of about 100 miles round trip.

Rode up into the mountains to Estes Park Colorado. Took it easy on the way up, haven't ridden hard on twisty roads for a few years. Coming back down I passed another bike who started to follow me. I guess that made me remember how to push a bike and had a lot of fun keeping ahead of him. So much power to play with on the K1300s but steers a little slow. Takes some getting used to. Want to take a friend for a ride up there and this thing will be amazing two-up!

 

[cstumpf750]

So it was lack of fuel. Losing power can cause the fuel gauge to read wonky for a while on these bikes. But as a point of reference, I’ve gone 18 miles past 0 miles and took on 4.9x gallons. Which reminds me, I can’t remember if it was just the k12s or if the early k13s were included, but apparently BMW had programmed them to reach zero miles when the engine stopped running due to lack of fuel. German logic. They gave you the low fuel warning and the miles to zero, what more do you need. Thankfully they changed it. I do wish I could make the low fuel warning come on later. Mine seems to come on with like 80-90 miles range left, not counting the 18 miles past zero, so I end up with the fuel light on a lot on long trips as I stretch out the fill up intervals. I try to get to 200 miles on a tank, which is possible cruising on the interstate. Usually I go about 170 miles in mixed riding.

 

[K1300s13]

 

[K1300s13]

From Estes Park today...

 

[Corkboy]

Do I get a prize for point number 4 in my post?

 

[K1300s13]

So I did get the drained battery to charge up again, although I'm leaving the lithium battery in for sure. The small charger here worked; think it came free with some battery I bought. The larger one that is for all types, including lithium, wouldn't charge the drained battery.