Did I kill my battery or...

[xgs550x]

something worse?

Ok first cold winter with a bike, so today I went to start up my bike as it has been sitting for about two weeks. It's been in the mid-20s here so I figured it was time to finally give in and winterize the beast. To start with I ran the battery down trying to start it, it was just to cold out. Like an idiot I just kept trying and finally the battery was dead. Then like an even bigger idiot I jumped it off a running car battery. Augh what was I thinking. Anyway, it started up and ran for a while. After about 15 min the bike died and it wouldn't kick over again. The horn, the electronics....nothing. So we jumped it again (yeah I am at total FOOL) and it started up again. I rode it around the block, stopped shut it down and the same thing...nothing when I tried to crank it again.

So...in my infinite stupidity. Have I done something much worse than killed my battery? Do I have a bigger issue? Could I have fried my stator? Or have I just murdered an innocent battery?

[bonanzadave]

Get the Battery out of the bike and service it. Check the water and trickle charge it. While its charging I would inspect and clean the electrical connections all over the bike. Get it running again and check the Batt voltage above 2K RPMs. If its not over 14VDC refer to the Stator Papers.

http://www.thegsresources.com/garage/gs_statorfacts.htm

[salty_monk]

Do all the electrics work when it is running? If so then I expect the only things you may have fried are the battery & the Regulator or maybe the battery is just so dead that it won't power a thing.
We had this on a friends bike... it had been overcharging & the battery was dry but it ran to get it home a few miles with a jump start.

Check the levels & charge the battery with a charger as a first step then start it up & see what the charging circuit is outputting with bike running at idle & revs up to 5k.

Dan

[xgs550x]

Hey Dan.

Yeah all the electrics were working while the bike was running. The second time we jumped it everything was working fine and I ran it around the block. Everything was good until I shut it down and then tried to start it again. Then...nada....

[Steve]

Yeah, my guess would be that the battery is toast. Might be recoverable, but why chance it?

A second guess would be that you killed a regulator when you jump-started the bike.

Now it's time to get back to what caused this mess: hard starting. When is the last time the valves were adjusted?
If you can't remember, it's way past time. Mis-adjusted make a cold engine very hard to start.

.

[Guest]

You may of fried some things. The R/R can't handle the load of a running car.
First check for burnt connections and fuses. Then do the Stator papers.

[xgs550x]

Hey Guys,

Would the fuses have def. gone before anything else? Is it safe to assume upon first visual inspection if the fuses are in tact I may have just murdered the battery?

[Steve]

You can run down a battery without blowing a fuse.

Also, a visual inspection of a fuse is not enough. You need to either use a test light or a meter. More than once, I have had a fuse separate under the metal cap, where the break could not be seen. The fuse looked good, but TESTED bad.

You new guys to the board might have noticed that several of us have "cute" sayings in our signatures. Have you bothered to read some of them? Some are actually rather informative and are there because we get tired of mentioning it every time, so we just take the lazy way out and put it in the sig. Notice, in particular, Nessism's signature: "To measure is to know." You can't just look at some stuff, you actually have to measure it. You can't just look at a fuse, you have to test it.

Test your fuses to see if they are good. Measure your battery voltage with the key OFF. Turn the key ON, measure it again. Watch the voltage as you hit the starter button. Let us know those three numbers, we can give you better guesses as to the health of your battery.

.