A friend of mine is a mechanic, and long ago he told me if my motorcycle’s battery fails and I can’t get another vehicle to help me with jumper cables, what I have to do is have the ignition ready, get it into 4th gear, and after giving it some momentum to suddenly release the clutch.
How does this work, and why 4th gear specifically?
In: Engineering
The old bump start.
Essentially, the hardest work your battery has to do is start your engine. It’s really hard and requires a lot of energy. But if you can manually get the bike/car rolling by pushing it and get going to say 4-5 mph and then sudden engage the engine… thats enough to do 90% of the work. If the battery has any life left in it at all, it’ll ignite the spark plugs and then your generator will recharge your battery while powering the engine.
It’s a good trick to know if you ever find yourself in a pickle. Starter switches on motorcycles are notoriously prone to failure.
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