Hey all,
Back in late December, I shut the spigot on getting E-Mail from this group because I was going to be off traveling for an extended period. And I knew that my two CB700's would just be sitting quietly out in the garage waiting for my return. Well, I'm back and I wanted to step back into the stream here again for my dose of Nighthawk mania. But, before I could even do that (I've been home just four days now), I've already got a motorcycle problem! So, rather than just re-joining for a chat and some lurking, I've got issues I need help on. Yesterday, I recharged the battery on my '85, popped the battery in and cranked it over. It took a long time before I got it to fire and then keep running but it eventually did. All good, I thought. I took it around the block, visited the local service station and put the air pressure up in the tires and was well satisfied with things. Today, I took it down the the New Zealand version of the Department of Motor Vehicles and got it inspected (a requirement here every six months) and then re-registered it. All good. Lights, brakes and everything looked good to them and they passed it with no problems. Then I took off to do some errands and, wouldn't you know it, after my second errand (now I'm on the far side of Christchurch from where I live) I came out, hit the starter and got a weird buzzing noise rather than the normal starter motor noises. Mmmmm. Not good. After a few attempts at wiggling things and trying to start it again, even the weird buzzing noise stopped and the dash lights dimmed away to zero when I hit the starter. So, I'm thinking 'this battery's dead'. I fussed with it and pulled the battery and several of the cells were low. I remembered that it had been full up when I put it on the charger yesterday but when I took it off the charger, I never rechecked the cell levels. So, I assume that the recharge must have driven off some of the water in it (or the aliens came and took it?). Regardless, I'm focused on the battery now. I tried a quick push-start but that did nothing. I had another problem there. When I put the bike in 3rd and tried to push it for a pop-start, I can feel the engine dragging even though the clutch lever's all the way in. So I know my clutch reservoir's brake fluid is low and maybe I have some air in the line. So, it's not looking like push starting will be an option unless several gorillas come along to help me push. And if the battery's sincerely dead, would it run anyway? I call my girlfriend and she comes and gets me and off we go home after stashing the beast behind an art and framing shop. At home, I top up the battery cells with tap water (yes, I know I should have used distilled) and put it back onto the charger for an hour and 30 minutes. Then, back into the car and we're away to the motorcycle again. I pop the battery in, turn the key and I get the same weird buzzing noise again. I trace it and it is in the starter relay coil making the racket. So, that's the situation now. My thoughts are that perhaps the battery (which was old) has packed it in and won't hold enough charge now to fully engage the starter motor relay and send juice onto the starter motor - hence the buzz and vibration which are definitely coming from the relay. If so, then I'm puzzled how, yesterday, when I was struggling to start it, I was able to crank it for several long sessions before I got it to run. How could the battery be that strong then and so lame now? Maybe, one of the plates in the battery has failed (is that possible?) and so it went from being able to do several good cranks to being seriously weak now? I had the starter motor fail on my '86 CB6700 several years ago (I wrote the repair details all up here on the Nighthawk group) but the symptoms were different than this. Then, I just got a solid click and nothing else. Nighthawk gurus, what are your thoughts on this? Dennis Christchurch, New Zealand -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
