Howdy strangers,

I trust you've all been flogging your old girls hard and having a good time? Good.

I got a few thousand kms in this season but not so much near the end after some weird battery experience. For the first few weeks of August I got to ride/camp near 2,000 kms over a two week period while wife & daughter drove "support" in the cage. Near the end of this trip I had one hard time starting after a few days at the same camp spot. A few minutes of sweating in my gear cursing the motorbike lords and stabbing the starter and I was back in business.

Getting home after that rip saw my old bike parked for a few weeks untouched. Then I tried to start her, unsuccessfully. She just clicked at me. I pulled the battery to find the thing was bone dry. Frame near vent looks like clear coat has corrosion on it. Fast forward a couple of weeks later and I filled it with dH2O and realized my charger had been loaned out. Fast forward a few more weeks later and I have my trickle charger back and battery gets a good green light on the trickle charger for a few weeks. All of the sudden it's today and I'm wanting to sort out what happened to result in me having a dry dead battery.

I installed the battery and did the FSM leak test; I think. The "I think" part comes from not being completely confident in my multi-meter settings/results. FSM procedure I followed was to turn key to off, remove neg. cable (ground), disconnect three r/r connectors, check for 0V with multi-tester leads on neg post and disconnected ground cable. I left the mutli-tester on the same "DC" setting I use to check battery voltage and I get 0.00X, not 0.000. Does such a small # indicated an alternator issue?

I went ahead and checked for charging as per FSM; warm bike to normal op temp, multi-tester on + and - battery post while revving to 5k rpm and got solid less-than-15V readings multiple times. This suggests to me that my r/r is okay. All of the connectors seemed fine - lots of dilectric grease still packed in from eons ago when I first inspected my wiring when I first took possession.

So, what should I do next? Just ride it? Research more re: r/r?

I've found and read these related threads ...

https://cbrforum.com/forum/showthrea...hlight=battery

https://cbrforum.com/forum/showthrea...hlight=battery


https://cbrforum.com/forum/showthrea...hlight=battery

... which also make me suspect my battery itself. I don't remember when I bought this last battery.


Whatcha think CBR guru's?

thx & happy halloween!

nsm

 

I'd replace the battery. If you don't remember when you bought it, then it's probably time for a replacement.

 

Familiar with this routine Mike , I went with a new MotoBatt GEL Battery & a Electrex
UK RR23 (R/R) ...................never had a problem since

OEM type R/R's have recurring failures ......just an fyi

 

My thought is that you definitely need a new battery. And if it were me, I'd go ahead and get a new aftermarket r/r like sprock suggested.
Batteries don't generally just dry themselves to the bone unless they've been overcharged. I keep telling myself that I'm gonna go ahead and pull the trigger on an electrex unit and I've had 0 issues with my stock r/r. It's just so common for them to fail (and ruin other components in the process like batteries, stators, connectors, wiring, etc) that it's really the best idea to just nip it in the r/r.

 

Every bike that I have owned has had battery issues. The battery is usually sitting someplace that is hot and through evaporation, the fluid escapes. I had to replace my battery every 1-2 years on every bike including this one. After switching to a sealed battery (not jell type), I am now on my 5th year without any problem. I don't get any over charging but it does get warm up under the saddle. I have the factory R/R and so far no troubles with it. In my case the sealed battery was a major improvement and I will never buy a battery that is not sealed again.

Any time you charge a battery you need to stop charging when it is fully charged. This goes for a trickle charger also. They get warm when charging and a trickle charge is like simmering the battery over time.

Nova Scotia Mike, you may be adding to your own pain by over charging. When you get the green light, it is time to pull the plug on the charger.

A battery tender is a different story. They stop charging when the battery is up to full charge.

 

Thanks for the feedback folks. I do think I'll replace the battery (with a sealed unit) at least ... but at this point I'm just going to wait until spring to do so. I think over the winter I'll also pick up a new r/r - for the sake of ~ $120 it'll ease my mind.

I did frig up my terminology in my above posting. I have several chargers as I never seem to be to happy with whatever I have, I can't pass up a deal and I have several bikes that need regular charging.

For chargers I have:
- a noname moto-specific manual 6-12V 500mamp unit I use for an old 6V bike I have (1977 XL 350) and occasionally for a 12V battery
- a 12V, 1amp manual charger I've typically used for the cbr battery for ~12 hours at a time over the winter. I try to do this every few weeks but realistically I've only ended up doing it a few times a winter. Dum dum move I know.
- a 6-12V 2/10/70amp "automatic" car charger I stole from my Dad. I've never fully trusted this one. I has a green "when fully charged" light which never comes on and seems to be a bit too high in he amps for the tiny moto batteries
- a <gasp> Harley Davidson <gasp> branded battery tender. From what I can tell it's a re-branded "battery tender" unit. This is the set-it-and-forget-it unit I've been using most recently and which also has a green "when fully charged" light which I was referring to incorrectly above as my trickle charger.

It's supposed to be nice enough out today so I might grab the black berry and try to go for a quick-within-cell-service-rip with my current suspect gear.

thx!

 

I'd have to recommend an Optimate Smart Charger Mike to go with the new battery
& R/R .........they're the nuts man

The particular model I use.

Set it and forget it !.....routine...... no way you can cook the battery with them

And ya know anything with a Harley label on it will charge waaaaaaaaaaay to slow

Enjoy the ride man........ doing exacterly the same myself in an hour or so when
it warms up just a bit more

 

hi NSM
battery trouble?
2 possibilities
1 voltage regulator failed and overcharging ( i had that , they fail all the time )
buy as 2nd hand regulator and make sure it has good contract to the frame( heat sink )
2 battery internal short and boiling out by its self ( had that too )
use a gel battery twice the life and twice the starting current
you will never use a wet battery again!
have fun paul

 

No offense CBRPaul , but I think we pretty much figured that out waay
back up in the thread man.

Can't say I'd agree with you on buying secondhand R/R's .....that to me
is not the best option and makes zero sense. I myself would quite simply
just not do that.

A good few of us have found the Electrex UK R/R's to be very long lasting
and less prone to recurring failures