Very slowly digest this. The battery has to have 10+ volts to make the alternator even work. If you started it often enough to run the battery down you may have created this condition. Recharge battery. A bike that is unused starts to deteriorate, especially electrical connections. Clean battery terminals, ground cable frame points, recharge battery. The late model 750 has no electrical issues to speak of. What I've given you so far should suffice. If you have access to a decent ammeter you can check output. Does your battery charger have a meter ? You can use it to verify the cable connections. Attach the charger to the battery and note current draw. Now connect the charger to the solenoid battery post (+) and the frame at a convenient point such as a foot peg bolt (-) Charge rate the same ? If not, renew connections (battery posts, ground cable) A further note, new riders often don't ride with enough RPM to enable the charging system to work. Some will ride the brake and that almost defeats the system completely. A stuck brake light switch will drop the charging rate of an otherwise healthy bike to a very marginal condition at any speed. Now this is by no means a complete diagnosis of a problem, only a place to start. This is where I begin to troubleshoot a failure. It's the basics.
--- On Wed, 9/2/09, Elliott Hoefflin <[email protected]> wrote: From: Elliott Hoefflin <[email protected]> Subject: [Nighthawk Lovers] Alternator problem... To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 1:50 PM Hey All, Alright, so I have an electrical problem that is way out of my league, so I decided to tap into the expertise that I have seen running around this group. I realize that electrical problems are tough to diagnose, especially remotely, but I am gonna ask anyway... I bought an '82 Nighthawk 750 a while back (beginning of last summer) but didn't ride it very much until recently. I put a new battery in it almost 2 months ago and it has been running great ever since, until last week when it died in the middle of the road and then didn't have enough power to even turn the engine over. So I jump started it, rode it for a while (and got it home), but when I stopped it and tried to start it again, it still didn't have any juice. I hear a click and they lights come on, but still not enough power to turn over the engine. That makes me think one of two things: either the battery went bad again (which seems kinda unlikely since the lights work) or my alternator is not charging the battery. I have a battery charger, but I haven't hooked it up to that yet, so that part of the story will have to come later... So, finally, my question: is it possible that when I charged the battery initially (2 months ago), it gave it enough juice to start the bike at least several times a week until now? It is likely that my alternator/generator is toast and not charging anything? Or is it possible that it is just not putting out enough power to balance out the juice used while starting it? Or is there any other explanation that might help this whole thing to make sense- like a short in my system that is slowly stealing battery power? I appreciate any info/insight you guys might have... Thanks! Elliott --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
