Topic: Left stranded twice today.

[Beastman]

Here's the story as quick as I can make it:

I live 35 miles from my garage space (my parents).

New battery (full overnight charge) and plugs installed a few days ago.  Bike would idle fine, didn't take it out of the driveway.  Didn't leave it on the tender while I was away.  Today the tender said charging "less than 80%".  Left it on for 30 minutes or so.  I figured the new battery had to have a decent charge still so I fired up the bike to head to my apt.

16 miles of back roads and the exhaust note changed significantly at certain throttle positions.  More pop pop poppy than the usual high pitched wine.  Started sputtering at lights and wouldn't idle without the choke.  If I kept the RPMs up, it seemed happier than when I was under 4000rpm.

Finally it stopped running near a gas station/car mechanic.  Plenty of fuel.  Plugs looked smokey grey when I pulled them.  Put my battery on the charger (again reading less than 80%).  Let the battery charge for 30 minutes or so.  Kicked it back over and it idled again.

Rode 10 more miles (8 miles on the highway at 60mph) and the same exhaust note change happened again.  Pulled off the next off-ramp moments before it sputtered out again.  This time I would get intermittent bursts of acceleration depending on throttle position.  But in the end it stopped running 1/4 mile off the highway.  No head/tail lights, no indicator lights.

I'm charging the battery again overnight to hopefully get the bike to my apt.  Any suggestions?

[MoMo]

There probably are close to one bazillion threads on charging systems. In a nutshell, You need to fully charge the battery before running any tests, a trickle charger requires way more than a half hour to bring the battery to 100%. Do you have a multimeter? Once the battery is fully charged  connect the meter across the battery terminals, voltage reading should rise close to 14v as rpms increase...Larry

[Spanner 1]

Your battery is depleting because your charging system is not operating...... first-up, undo the 8-way connector behind the airbox and examine each 'spade' and 'socket' for bright and shiny...... what do you find ?

[andy750]

As the other two mentioned charge battery properly then troubleshoot with a multimeter. If battery is not charging look at alternator wires (the section that connects to the main harness -plugs in behind gear cover - often these can corrode), regulator working ok?, rectifier? And make sure you have a good connection at the battery +ve and -ve. See if battery voltage changes with increasing RPMS. If not thats a good hint its not charging.

Check all connections to do with the ignition -points/coils/power wires etc etc...maybe a short somewhere.

good luck
Andy

[Brantley]

You might also want to have the battery load tested to make sure it doesn't have a bad cell, if yr bike ran well before changing it. I had sorta the same problem with a six month old AGM 'maintenance free' battery. Battery would charge to around 12.9-13.1v. As soon as the key was turned voltage would drop to 8 or 9v, and hitting the starter button took it down to 2v or less. After completely tearing down the wiring harness and putting it all back together same thing. Took the battery to Advance. It was bad.