g =good; ng = no good (that's Dennis speak, a form of east coast
American used by a select one - and they are questions to which you
are to respond), Graham, slowly learning the language.
On Jan 25, 2010, at 6:55 AM, bull city wrote:
oops.. forgot to post to whole group.
short story: 6000 miles, WPS battery (cheap), dealer forgot to have
battery ready when they said they would and probably rushed to get it
ready after that.
what does g/ng mean?
On Jan 24, 11:04 pm, Dennis Hammerl <[email protected]> wrote:
How interesting. You have a problem and have started to look in
the wrong place first. Your description is very good. Why ?
Because it points in a totally different direction than you are
going in. Let's gather some information first. How many miles are
on this ? What brand is the battery and if you bought it from a
source that did the proper pre-delivery service before selling it
to you. You say it goes flat quite quickly. That is the sign of a
poor battery. Was it load tested after being charged ? It matters
not that it is new, a battery must be properly serviced before
being put into use. An improperly serviced battery will NEVER be
at 100% no matter what. A low quality battery that is not treated
properly before being placed in service will cause starting AND
charging problems. So much for part one.
#2 The question about mileage is important because the starter may
be going bad. You've done a ton of work on this and probably
started it quite often without riding it enough at any given time
to recharge the battery. The starter may be drawing a lot more
than it should as well.
SO... Take the battery to a dealer ( I know and I don't want to
hear it. DEAL WITH IT) have it charged and tested on a load bank.
G / NG ?
Once you resolve that issue, get the bike started and
check the alternator output. A battery that has less than 10.5
volts will not have a functional charging system. The charging
system can be checked only with a good battery. All of your
resistance checks indicate a good system. A check of the charging
rate is called for. Do that with an ammeter inline with the
battery. Use an ammeter with a +- 10A range. Disconnect the ground
cable from the battery and hook up the ammeter inline with the
battery. DO NOT START the bike this way. Hold the ground cable
terminal against the battery post to start it. (trying to start it
through the ammeter will cause the ammeter to fail) Once running,
separate the terminal from the post and read the charge rate.
Those bikes begin to charge at a point above 2000rpm. The charge
rate will be high for a time and then fall off as the battery is
recharged. If the bike has no / low charge rate, there are further
checks.
That's enough for now.
I'm not there, but I see a brand X battery that's been poorly
serviced, abused by repeated starts and than ridden a short
distance with a non-functional charging system.. then failed
completely. If I hadn't seen this a thousand times already, I
wouldn't be quite so sure. I am.
Get PO'd at me and scream. I'm used to it.
________________________________
From: bull city <[email protected]>
To: Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers! <[email protected]>
Sent: Sun, January 24, 2010 4:26:58 PM
Subject: [Nighthawk Lovers] '83 550 SC Electrical Issues
I had my $600 garage find running with a new battery and rebuilding
the clutch and front brake. After a couple of weekends of working on
it, and only taking ti out for about a 5 minutes ride the bike went
dead as I pulled into my driveway. I tried to restart but the
battery
just didn’t have any power.
I let it sit for about two months as Christmas passed. I’m figuring
the problem is somewhere in the rectifier/ alternator. I went and got
the battery recharged at autozone, tried to restart the bike but the
battery just didn’t have the juice and went dead within 5 minutes (if
that) of trying to start it.
So I have not been able to do any running tests on the bike. But here
is what I have done:
Checked the rectifier using a multimeter to check resistance between
each of the 3 yellow leads to the green ground. It registered zero
ohms on each with one polarity, when the polarity was reversed there
was no current on any. So I am assuming that means it good. I found
this method on-line athttp://www.dansmc.com/electricaltesting.htm. I
have the manual but have no idea what the tests are that the manual
calls for (Sanwa SP-10D, etc...)
Checked the alternator by seeing if there is connectivity on the
winding. All yellow leads coming from the alternator show
connectivity. The manual says to check this on the “alternator
side”of
the connector. I am assuming this means the winding is good.
The next step in the manual says to check resistance levels on the
“harness” side, which I am assuming is the leads to the rectifier? I
am NOT getting connectivity between the yellow leads going into the
rectifier. Is this what I am supposed to be doing?
Next is says to check between each yellow lead and the green ground,
which I have and it shows no connectivity, which it supposedly should
not.
I don’t have a running bike at this point to I cant check any running
tests.
So, what should I check at this point?
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