Topic: barebone wiring cb550--kick start help...one more question

[spiderdan1331]

ok...before i tore all the wires out to start from fresh, i tried kick starting it with no battery. didn't fire up. hardly cranked at all.
with the battery in i can use the kick start no problem...first kick, every time. runs great!
isnt there a way to eliminate the battery completely? is there maybe some sort of alteration needed to the alternator or  

[CBGhia]

The 550 will not work without a battery.  You need a charge to tell the stator what polarity to have.  You can get away with a small battery,  several people have used very small 12v batteries and put them under the seat hump on cafes

[spiderdan1331]

The 550 will not work without a battery.  You need a charge to tell the stator what polarity to have.  You can get away with a small battery,  several people have used very small 12v batteries and put them under the seat hump on cafes

thank u for clearing that up...im gonna stick with a regular battery anyways

[cgancos]

If I'm not mistaken, a smaller bike such as a CB350 can swap over to a magento system and run the bike without a battery, but the 550 is eligible for this upgrade. It did make me a little sad when I found this out.

[Bodi]

Any of these bikes can use magneto ignition  if you want to use 1920's technology in a 1970's machine, but you still need an alternator or generator to provide lighting power on a street bike. I think you mean using a permanent magnet alternator/generator which can work without a battery. It is possible to modify any SOHC4 to have a permanent magnet alternator but the job is never easy. Possibly the 350/400 has a crank end taper that fits another bike's permanent magnet rotor (CB77?) directly where the other models require more improvisation and machine shop work to do it. I don't know, I never had a huge problem with the stock system. You can use a small sealed battery if you lose the electric starter, the weight loss would be comparable.

[redbullssg]

I don't mean to sound stupid, but, So if you have a dead battery, then you can't kick start it?  What is the point of the kick start then? 

[cameron]

You can kick it if you don't have ENOUGH charge to actually run the starter motor.