Battery charged, but bike won't start

[Parkblu]

My 2004 R always had a relatively lame start, even with a replacement (Panasonic) battery which went into service in 11.06. When not riding, the bike is hooked up on a Battery Tender+.

Now the bike won't even start anymore, despite a "fully charged" indication by the BT. It barely and very slowly turns over, but not enough the get the engine running. Between the posts, the battery reads 12.6v, while cranking dropping to 9.8 - 10.4v.

Electrics are not my strong point to boot, but before I buy yet another battery or haul it to the dealer I wonder what (with your handholding ) I could possibly do to diagnose and rectify the problem?

TIA,
-tobias.

[CycleRob]

Replace the dead battery with an Odyssey PC-680.

The BT only tells you it's up to fully charged voltage, easily obtained on a sulfated (near dead) battery.

[Parkblu]

Howdy Rob - good to hear from you!

Update Sun evening:

I was so miffed about the battery issue (and yes, I should have bought an Odyssey to start with) that I decided to hook up another charger that I set to 2amp deep-cycle charging. Now, after four hours on line, the battery is charged enough that it started the bike. At least a bit of progress.

Should I still toss the Panasonic, or have a load test done on everything first?

[snowprick]

Howdy Rob - good to hear from you!

Update Sun evening:

I was so miffed about the battery issue (and yes, I should have bought an Odyssey to start with) that I decided to hook up another charger that I set to 2amp deep-cycle charging. Now, after four hours on line, the battery is charged enough that it started the bike. At least a bit of progress.

Should I still toss the Panasonic, or have a load test done on everything first?

Have you had a good look at your battery connections? Sounds like they may be loose or corroded. Remove the seats and have a good look at them using a flashlight and mirror. (your looking for greyish white powder) Reach in and give the terminals a wiggle (to the left and right) to see if the terminals are loose. (with your fingers) Check also the connectiona down at the starter/relay (under the grey plastic cover that may have a Powerlet socket on it) Odyssey is very good but clean secure connections are the first port of call. Before messing about in there its a good plan to remove your gold rings.

[Parkblu]

Good advice, thanks! I checked battery connections yesterday, but only cursory. As my office beckons now (7:45 am), tonight I'll chuck all the bling (is that 4ct-rock on my pinkie really conductive? ) and go digging.

[Arbee]

There are two styles of fault finding and the usual one is... "Replace suspect part"

However i can offer another solution not to replace the suspect part but put the suspect part
on a fully serviceable machine, this will establish if the fault has been transferred...

[snowprick]

Good advice, thanks! I checked battery connections yesterday, but only cursory. As my office beckons now (7:45 am), tonight I'll chuck all the bling (is that 4ct-rock on my pinkie really conductive? ) and go digging.

Not sure, touch it and see, joke joke. I think gold is one of the best conductors known to man. Can anyone correct me on that one.

[Photoguy]

I think gold is one of the best conductors known to man. Can anyone correct me on that one.

Here, let me try to confirm that with my ring and the electrical wall outle..................................

[R4R&R]

Replace the dead battery with an Odyssey PC-680.

My OEM gel battery finally died last week. I was able to roll-start the bike to get it home and the next morning it started again. The low voltage light never induicated anything, along with the ABS light (I heard low voltage will trigger the ABS to show a fault). I had some time so I shopped around but didn't find a deal. I had a choice of going to www.batteriesplus.com or the dealer. The dealer was more expensive and the same 'ol battery, plus three times further away. I opted for the Odyssey PC-680 from Batteries plus, but it wasn't cheap ($150 after tax). I put that battery in and I don't ever remember my bike starting that quick - even 64,000 miles ago! I have to recommend the PC-680.

Now why are car batteries so cheap?

[Parkblu]

Update: after I had my Panasonic battery on puls-charging yesterday, I got home too late last night to check connections etc. This morning, the bike started up. After a quick spin around the block I went inside, took a shower and planned to take her to work - no such luck. Battery was practically dead again, so I'll toss that one.

I have a Westco (BMW OEM) flying around that seems ok, but in the end I'll probably bite the bullet and get a PC-680 as well (very quick search: cheapest one seen so far is $127.88 on ebay incl. s/h: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ODYSSEY- ... 0264188908 )

[Boxer]

My PC-680 just died. It was installed in April of '06 and I got it off eBay back over 30,000 miles ago. I got up Monday to leave on my trip with JB and it was dead, after charging it the night before with the Battery Tender.
This morning I jumped the bike off from my truck and let it run for a few minutes while I checked the alternator voltage. It was charging at 13-14 volts, and it took a long time for my charger to say it was done at 6amps charging. No sooner had I disconnected it and put away the charger, I tried the starter and it was dead instantly again...Well, reading 9-10 volts.
It is now out of the bike...I just love taking the tank off...and charging again. I thought possibly I could have had a loose connection coming from the starter to the battery. Its sadly doing the same thing...Charging very slowly. I fear its done for.
It cost me $58 in '06. Now they're $156 or so. I did find one on eBay for $127, but now I don't trust that source. This PC-680 should have lasted longer than 2 1/2 years.

[CycleRob]

Boxer, When we talked on the phone about parasitic drains, your Honey-Do (or something less important) truncated my parasitic loss test instructional. Here it goes again for others to also know:
--Engine OFF (duh!)
--Disconnect the negative battery terminal.
--Remove the #5 fuse powering the Motronic as it's low power draw clouds the test.
--Disconnect any 12Volt farkle you added on that uses the tiniest bike battery power (XM radio?).
--Set your MultiMeter to the Amps DC scale.
--Clip one of the multimeter's alligator clips to the battery negative terminal.
--Clip the other one to the negative cable's terminal.
--It should read less than 50 milliamps (.05 Amp)
--0.1 Amp reading or higher is trouble hidden in the the bike or it's alternator.

I forgot another big one. The alternator's diode bank and/or the triode that powers the regulator. Either or both can be damaged by a sparking/sputtering high current connection like would occur in moving around the jumper cable clamp in search of a better connection. Also can be damaged by overheating, as would occur in repeatedly asked to run charge a dead battery. They are also instantaneously, fatally damaged by a reverse polarity connection during any jump start - - - which you did not do because you reported a decent voltage with the bike running.

Normally these diode assemblies both rectify the AC current the alternator windings produce into clean (AC free) DC current the bike needs. They essentially serve as a one way check valves toward the 3 phase AC electric current. Their internal resistance (Ohms) is low (pass) in one direction and extremely high (block) in the reversed polarity. They are easy to Ohmmeter test when the alternator is apart -but- I have an even easier voltmeter test. You set your high quality expensive voltmeter (NOT kidding!) to the AC scale, hook the leads to the battery, engine off, and confirm it reads almost zero. If you get a reading of 6 or more volts, the multimeter isn't a high quality expensive voltmeter and won't/can't be a good diagnostic tool. I just checked a Harbor Freight cheapie multimeter set on AC Volts to the battery terminals and it read 37.8 VAC !!. It's internal half wave rectifiers are cheaper, but it will give you false readings reading ACV in the presence of DCV. If you get zero volts after a few seconds, your meter is good, start the bike. You should get a very low, way, way under 1 volt treading if the diode bank is good. My bike read .06VAC at idle when the regulator's stator current is being cycled on/off slower and .01VAC at 4,000RPM. If you see a voltage as high as 60 volts AC or higher when revving the engine, the diode bank is toast and it will kill the battery FAST when the bike is parked. Naturally, there are degrees of diode failure directly proportional to the degradation or damage to it's blocking resistance property.

Also not well known is that
"alternators can be easily ruined by failing to recharge a rundown battery. The alternator is designed to maintain battery charge, not to recharge dead batteries. The added strain of trying to revive a dead battery may overtax the unit causing it to overheat and fail."
To fully charge a battery you need a charger that will approach, but not exceed, 15 Volts.


EDIT to fix syntax and add battery ACV run readings.

.

[boxermania]

A slight correction to my ilustrious friend and his excellent technical post above.....

--0.1 V reading or higher is trouble hidden in the the bike or it's alternator.

I think he meant 0.1 amp.......as that is what is being measured.

[Boxer]

The bike and battery charged up fine during the Hungry Mother trip. When I got home I parked it and rode the F650 the first week back to work, and then the following week, I rode the Roadster one or two days. All worked fine. The it set in the garage for a couple of weeks until I chrged the battery with the BT on Sunday night. It took an unusually long time for it to come up to charge and the green light went off. It was dead the next morning.
Move ahead to yesterday. I charged it up...It went very slowly like it was a severely drained battery. Then after it said it was charged, I tried to start the bike but it was immediately dead again...down to 9 or 10 volts reading. I removed it from the bike and charged it again...or tried to. It would never charge up with my little 6amp charger. DEAD!
But why? Why would a PC-680 die early? I realize there are many reasons, but speculation would be helpful. With 75K miles on my bike I might very well have a bad alternator.

[Parkblu]

Many thanks and a hearty Bavarian Dank Dir! to CycleRob for his detailed description. With that in hand, even electric dummies like me can give diagnostics a shot, and I normally refrain from those attempts.

Not having found any loose connection earlier this week, I ordered an Odyssey. They have a warehouse right here in Fort Lauderdale, FL (because of all the marine industry), but even with a resale ID wouldn't let me buy from them direct. Still, I should have it today or tomorrow.

(Rob, btw: the repair of the fuel line rail (the hard part) you had advised me about in spring is still holding fine. I won't win the Concourse d'Elegance with it, but it works fine so far).

[CycleRob]

tobias,
Glad the fuel line is fixed without having to replace the whole fuel rail. Go back up to my post above as I edited it to reflect new ACV run data and correct the tiny flaw my good friend boxermania pointed out.

[RGuy]

First of all, all batteries will eventually fail. I have had a few AGM batteries, mostly in ATV applications, fail over the years. Some have held up pretty well and some have performed miserably. They always seem to fail with the same flaky patterns.... they charge up and test well but then suddenly go dead, won't start, etc. You may charge them again and it seems okay and then they croak again. If they defy reason they are probably bad - just my experience. FWIW I have a 5 year old Panasonic AGM in my R65 and a 5 year old BMW Gel in my R1150 and have been very happy / lucky with both. Fingers firmly crossed

P.S. The Odyssey is an AGM, a high quality one but still an AGM

[Parkblu]

OT:

no, I don't want anyone's Bud (I had a spot of Powers, thank you), but this forum and it's members are just the best. You folks rock.

Before I get too warm and fuzzy, I better turn in for the night.

[Parkblu]

Quick Update, 10:30:

installed the Odyssey, but probably did something really weird: the bike starts, but runs extremely rough (only on one cylinder?) and mostly stalls when idling. We had pouring rain last night and night before when I was home, so I couldn't ride it, but I probably even shouldn't until I found the culprit.

Onwards, to researching the next problem... sigh.

Afternoon, 17:45: bike barely starts, but no luck yet on identifying the fault. Hmmm. Research on the forum brought the solution: right side throttle cable sleeve was slightly off the receiving end; I must have knocked it off during battery install. That 1 or 1.5mm difference was enough - astonishing.

Besides still being a hesitant starter, at least she runs again. Thanks for your input and help everyone!

[rantee]

Amazing. I changed my grip heaters and my Rockster wouldn't start. I fiddled with everything, charged the battery for days. I finally found the post on the throttle cable not being seated in the adjustment ferrule. It came out when I took off the throttle side grip heater. A simple "put it back correctly" adjustment, no tools. And she fired up immediately. I almost bought a new oem battery as a possible fix. Glad I kept searching. This forum is great. Thanks to everyone.