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battery goes low over night. help.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
  • Start date Start date
A

Anonymous

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hello fellas me again searching for enlightenment. My brothers bike had charging issues. I found where the pos battery cable had somehow worn through its insulation and arced(melted) the ground wire for the R/R-(wich had been relocated from its original spot in the wiring loom,alongside its plug, to between the R/R itself and the frame). I spliced in a new ground wire to the original configuration and cleaned all the contacts/connections. some were pretty yucky inside. now the stator and R/R are checking out ok but the battery is losing charge as it sits unused.
Also if the battery is below around 12.5 volts it will not operate the starter solenoid at all. So overnight the battery gets low enough to not work the solenoid and you have to start it by shorting across the starter leads. I had planned to replace the pos. batt. cable and the starter solenoid. but I am curious if this will cure it or not? please some insight.

My bike never did anything like this. :?
my bike : 86 GS550ES Red/White/Black
my little brothers bike: 83 GS550E (fairing added) Blue/White

I will send in pics of us on our rat bikes when I figure this out.
Thanks alot fellas :D
 
Charge the battery and leave it disconnected over night to see if it is the battery going bad or something draining the battery
 
Hmmm....R/R and stator are OK, but it loses voltage ovenight. Well, we are now coming up on night, at least for today, so why not disconnect the battery for the night, and check its voltage in the morning?

Maybe you just have a bad battery.
 
It's night, or close to it, depending on where you are, so don't try to charge the battery before disconnection. It would always lose some voltage from a fresh charge, but DO check it at the time of disconnection,
record the numbers, and compare them with the morning readings.

If the battery was not charged for several hours before disconnection, then the voltage should now be stable, and there should be close to zero loss overnight. Best to use a digital VOM/.Volt-ohmmeter.

You don't expect them to do so, but new batteries can and do fail.

Sleep well.
 
could you observe a draw on the batt. by connecting a voltmeter btwn the disconnected positive battery cable and the pos battery post? If I remember right that is how I used to do it on cars.Its been a while.
Does this sound right 8O ?
 
An ammeter is what you really want to measure current draw. Voltage will certainly drop if there is a draw somewhere but that will happen over time. It will be hard to tell if the voltage drop is due to current draw or a defective battery. By using an ammeter you can see exactly how much current is being consumed at any point in time.
 
Hey krash, everbody is right. :wink: It is possible that the battery is bad and you should be able to find out with the overnight trick. If the battery is good Gman is right about you should connect an ammeter up to the system. What you are looking for is a drain on the system when the ignition is off. There should be a no draw at all(reading should be 0) with the key out and the ignition off, if there is you have a bad circuit somewhere. It is possible that the igition switch itself is bad. When you hook up the ammeter you can check to see it is working correctly by turning circuits on i.e. turn the ignition to on and you should see a reading on the ammeter, and with each new circuit the reading should increase. To narrow down where the problem turn the ignition switch to off and pull the key out and thens pull each fuse out one at a time and check the meter, when the meter reads zero it is in that circuit.

I hope this helps
JD
 
drain

drain

If it is a drain, I'd start suspecting the diodes in the rectifier, they can go bad and flow battery current back as well as forward and do this. Since the charging system is connected direct to the batteryand not via the ign switch, turning the key off doesnt stop the drain.
Having said that, I nearly had the wife's car in bits from this and was sheepish to have it pointed out to me at the last minute that the boot light was left switched into the on position.
Theres a procedure to test the diodes out in the manual for the bike, but im sure you'll find it on the electrical q+a too..
Just a thought...
 
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