Lovely day yest. Rolled the SS out and of course it wouldn't start. The battery was new when I bought the bike earlier this year. It was fully charged about 2-3 weeks ago, but admittedly hasn't been out for a run since then. It really struggled to turn those pistons over. So I had to abort the mission. Battery was showing 12.7v and after a few hours charge ended up with 13.3v There's no immobiliser etc to cause any drain, and I would have thought that 12.7 would be enough to get going? I wonder if the rectifier is is good shape. Not sure how to best to test that? Of course, thoughts are now turning to a set of Exact Start cables as well..
If your rectifier is dead then you'll see no charge at all while running, ie 11-12v so i doubt that's the problem. Measure the battery voltage while pressing the starter, if it drops really low while cranking after an overnight charge then the battery is toast. 12.7 is great, but if you have dodgy internals you can have a cell fail under load but look fine at rest Check the voltage at idle, if there's no charge, but ok at high revs then could be a stator or wiring problem
If the battery and charging system check out ok, then you need to check for voltage drops across connections and between either end of cables. Start on the starter side. A dirty or corroded connection can cause all sorts of problems like this. Don't forget the starter relay connections
plus the colder season is almost upon us, I lost a perfectly good gel battery last winter just because i took my eye off the ball, so cold weather and voltage dropped too low.
And don't forget that once the current has left the battery, it needs to have an equally low resistance return route so check the main earth connection on the back of the gearbox behind the clutch as well.......
Likewise on my 1098. That said, I fitted Exact cables in the spring as I had cold start issues. I’ll report back when the cold really kicks in. My 959 wouldn’t start if left for that long either (3 weeks).
Ok. Today's initial reading was approx 12.7v. I then pressed the starter to crank the engine - the voltage across the battery terminals dropped to between 9 and 10.5v or thereabouts. The 'recovery' charge showed 11.87v afterwards. I didn't let it crank for very long, but within not many cycles I could hear it really struggling again. I haven't had time to do any further tests yet. However this doesn't look too great. Maybe not the real cause, but can't be good. Conclusion: bad battery(?)
Is that after being on charge overnight? Wouldn't expect a battery to drop to 9 and would expect it to go back to over 12 after then slowly climb
Whatever the issue and solution, I would defo recommend the uprated starter cables. Put a set on my 999 and made a set for my 900ss, and literally they are up and running in 2 seconds.
I started it once yesterday after a full charge, but then left it overnight. Which to be honest I've done before (i.e. not put on trickle overnight), and had no issues the next day. I will charge it again, and then repeat the process. Meantime I will check all the connections for good contact.
Not at all, I searched Amazon for "heavy duty car battery cables" that were thicker (alas I forget the guage, but if you can wait till the weekend I can dig out the dims for you) and long enough to cut to the sizes I was needing. I then cut/recrimped and soldered the ends where I needed them. Simples. Cheers Grant
They are very easy to make if you have the correct crimp tool for larger cables. And of course a source of the cable. I use one like this: https://www.furneauxriddall.com/col...e-terminal-sprung-loaded-hammer-crimping-tool I brought it years ago to make battery cables for my boat and it's been very useful ever since. I've made 6 sets for my own use, but make them to fit the bike, so need access to do it. Note cleaning the ends won't help a lot as the corrosion on the original crimps tends to get up between the terminal and cable.
The original ones tend to be thick enough to carry you out of the showroom. Thicker is usually better so long as everything fits
