Dead Dirty Vision

[h2olawyer]

Congrats!  Sure looks purdy.  The upgrades should help it ride better than new!   

H₂O

[Brian Moffet]

I rode the Vision down to the airport to participate in a Young Eagles rally ( http://www.youngeagles.org/ ).  The bike ran flawlessly the entire way down and back.  I had the running headlights on all the way.  I also ran into traffic on the way back, which lead to stop and go traffic. For those people interested, the temp gauge ran from 40 percent from bottom to top of green to about 75 percent when stopped in traffic.  Never approached the red.  A good 40 mile ride there and back.

However, once I got home, the bike didn't want to start again, it would turn over and almost start, but not quite.  Once in the garage I was able to get it started and looked at the voltage at the battery at 3500 RPM, it was registering 13.5 volts.  Now this is the same battery that was in the bike when it died on the way to Paso, and I knew that it needs replacing.  The battery basically sat for 10 months. It would only register 12 volts when fully charged, so I suspect one of the cells is gone.

Brian

[inanecathode]

How do the plugs look?

[Brian Moffet]

Plugs are good (new as of 35 miles ago, and looking fine now.)

[Brian Moffet]

I need to reorganize the images on my web space, as I am taking up too much.  Because of that, the images in this thread will no longer be good. 

All of the photos will be in my pbase account, and I will be updating my web page to link off of there.

FYI

Brian

[inanecathode]

I rode the Vision down to the airport to participate in a Young Eagles rally ( http://www.youngeagles.org/ ).  The bike ran flawlessly the entire way down and back.  I had the running headlights on all the way.  I also ran into traffic on the way back, which lead to stop and go traffic. For those people interested, the temp gauge ran from 40 percent from bottom to top of green to about 75 percent when stopped in traffic.  Never approached the red.  A good 40 mile ride there and back.

However, once I got home, the bike didn't want to start again, it would turn over and almost start, but not quite.  Once in the garage I was able to get it started and looked at the voltage at the battery at 3500 RPM, it was registering 13.5 volts.  Now this is the same battery that was in the bike when it died on the way to Paso, and I knew that it needs replacing.  The battery basically sat for 10 months. It would only register 12 volts when fully charged, so I suspect one of the cells is gone.

Brian

If it actually reads 12 volts fully charged you should be fine cell wise. I'd suggest a good flush and overcharge, it'll bring that battery right back to new

[Night Vision]

a battery can read 12v on a meter and still have a bad cell(s)

[Brian Moffet]

Doesn't matter, I replaced it with an AGM battery from Mikes and it works great.

[inanecathode]

It shouldn't read 12 volts after any sort of load condition, (thats why i said if it 'actually reads 12v' sorry if i wasn't clear), if a cell is dead. Each cell produces (ideally) 2.1 volts, no less than 2. To have a bad cell it'd have to simultaneously have a bad cell, and a single severely (over twice the voltage) sulfated cell, bringing the surface charge back up to twelve, even with a dead cell. That is to say thats just a surface charge, under any kind of load the sulfated cell would drop back to almost nothing, leaving you with a battery with 8.4 or 9 volts. A weak battery like he describes that reads an actual voltage of around 12 volts is almost always medium to heavy sulphation. Shorted cells aren't very common anyway, not to mention for such a young battery (10 months isn't long for a modern lead acid cell battery).

[Brian Moffet]

It sat for 10 months without being used.  It was in the bike for 3 - 4 years prior to that.

Brian

[inanecathode]

Oh, well thats different then