Hi All,

My '98 Blade (CBR900RRW) has been running fine for the 12 months I've had it on the road, up until now. It wouldn't start the other day so did some digging. I have 12.5v at the battery until I switch the ignition on, then it drops to about 4 and slowly rises.
My initial thoughts are a rectifier/regulator issue, or a generator issue, both usual suspects. The plug (and terminals) on the rectifier isn't the best, whether this is new or its been this way for a while I don't know.
Can anybody give a heads up where to start ?

Cheers

Keith

 

@keithriley Hey, welcome to the forum. For clarification, when you say you switch the ignition to ON, you're not actually starting it, only turning the key to the on position? If so, my first inclination is the battery is not holding a charge. Have it tested. Not uncommon for them to go bad after siting for a while. Not uncommon to see the terminals get corroded looking due to poor contact. Lots of current passing through them However, bad connections would not cause a power drop like that when turning on the ignition key.

 

Thanks for the advice there. I tackled the job today expecting to find either the alternator or the rectifier gone, but after some basic testing all proved to be good. Nevertheless I split all the electrical connections around there (under the seat) inspected them and give them a quick clean. Just on the off chance, I swapped a battery from another bike and hey presto all is well, seems the original battery, that worked faultlessly all last year, has now given up the ghost, even though it was off the bike and kept nice and warm in the house over winter.

 

Good to hear that you have sorted it, batteries are a real pain with little indication when they decide to pack up

 

@keithriley Excellent, glad to hear you've got it taken care of. Nothing worse than a bike that dies on ya. So, where is East Midlands? I'm not sure where Midlands is so don't know where east of it would be... lol