Starting question (electrical related)

[jbh]

I was curious how many have the same situation as me. I have a 6 month old oddosey battery in my 1999 RT and I have a batter tender. If I leave the batter tender connected the bike will crank up like normal. If I leave it off the tender for a week or more it at first will not turn over the starter on first push of the button, it just clicks and tries about 1/2 a turn. When I hit it again it will crank but not that eagerly. This was also similar when I had a BMW gell battery. Does the clock really draw that much juice over a week or two? This is a garage kept bike so tempature should not be an issue in Texas during the spring.

[Haynes]

As a first check, I'd isolate the power to the clock and see if there is any difference in the behavior. I don't think the clock uses a fuse so you may have to resort to disconnecting a plug somewhere.

[ShovelStrokeEd]

Sounds to me like a bad battery. Odessey, or however it is spelled, are generally considered among the better batteries out there, you might just have gotten a duff one.

 

Leave the bike off the tender and monitor battery voltage over the course of a couple of days. It should stay right at 12.6 volts. If it is dropping below that, disconnect the ground lead from the battery and hook an ammeter in series. You should see no worse than a few milliamps with everything turned off.

 

Just another thought, you are only turning the key to the Off or Lock positions, right? Not that last notch to the left, which will turn on the parking lights.Sounds to me like a bad battery. Odessey, or however it is spelled, are generally considered among the better batteries out there, you might just have gotten a duff one.

 

Leave the bike off the tender and monitor battery voltage over the course of a couple of days. It should stay right at 12.6 volts. If it is dropping below that, disconnect the ground lead from the battery and hook an ammeter in series. You should see no worse than a few milliamps with everything turned off.

 

Just another thought, you are only turning the key to the Off or Lock positions, right? Not that last notch to the left, which will turn on the parking lights.

[powerman]

you mention you had the same problem with two batteries so i don't thinks its the battery. you have another electrical draw draining the battery

my thoughts

1) what Ed said

2) do you have a radio, is in on with the volume down.

3) other electrical accessories, radar, audio com, gps, etc that is still on when you park the bike?

4) other add on relays that coils are still pulled in (i almost added a relay for aux com equipment driven from the radio power but i relized that i always park the bike in the radio position, so i would have killed the battery with relay coil always on, it would of probably taken about a week for this).

 

my bike cranks easily after two months without charge in the cold with the odesey.

[No_Twilight]

Sounds like you have some accessory drawing the battery down. What have you added to the bike? Otherwise, you might have a ground fault of some sort. It seems unlikely you'd have two bad batteries in a row. Can you borrow a clampon ammeter somewhere. I've seen the numbers for the stock clock/RID amperage and we can did them up. --Jerry

[BucksTherapy]

I have an Oddyssey and leave it two months at a time over the winter in heated storage withouot charging of any kind and it will fire my bike without hesitation. It has been an excellent, forgiving, battery.

 

First check the voltage after three days. If below 12.5 volts you know it is discharging. Now to find out why. It either won't hold a charge(bad battery) or is being discharged(something putting draw on the battery when the bike is turned off).

 

If the voltage is above 12.5V then I would start looking for problems with the starter or the heavy wiring going to the starter or the ground wire between the battery and the engine.

 

If the voltage is below 12.5V then most inexpensive digital voltmeters have a 10A ammeter built in. If you can locate one of these, disconnect the ground side of your battery and put the ammeter in line between the battery and the ground cable(make sure any other wires going to the ground side of the battery are connected to the cable not the battery). Leave the bike turned off while the ammeter is connected or you will fry it. Measure the amperage been drawn when the bike is turned off. This should be less then .02A. If it is greater then leave it in line and start pulling fuses or disconnecting the ground wires for all accessories one at a time, check the meter to see if the amperage fell then plug that fuse back in and go to the next.

 

When you find the fuse that drops the amperage you will know the issue is on that circuit. Start disconnecting items on that circuit in the same manner as the fuses to identify the specific problem.

 

Good luck and let us know what you find.

[jbh]

Thanks for all the response. I do not think it is the battery because the gell battery did the same thing and I do not think it was very old when I replaced it. As far as accesories, I am not aware of any but I did purchase the bike used. There is a power outlet near the grab handle on the side of the bike as well as the dash board (not sure if the bike came with two). No radio, electronics or anything else. There was an extra wire connected to the battery when I changed it but I think it was for a charger. I will double check that I removed it (I used the power outlet for charging). My neighbor has a voltmeter he used when he worked for Pacific Bell so I can borrow that to check the volts. It may be a few days until I get to it but I think I will use bucks method.

[No_Twilight]

Make sure that extra wire from the PO isn't contacting ground somewhere. If it has a poor ground connection (dangling terminal on a painted frame, for example) it might give you what you're seeing. But it would soon enough spark and arc, more likely. That said, I like Buck's method too. I have a fancy clampon eliminating the need to remove the cable and the old fashioned way slipped my mind. you'll need some clamps of some sort to hold the probes onto the cables. Make sure you put the meter on the ground side of the battery. Putting it on the hot side makes you vulnerable to lots of accidental welding events.

Cheers,

Jerry

[Bill Dennes]

How many miles on your bike?

 

My fuel pump died at 69k miles. The only symptom was the battery failed. Yep.

 

The bike died once and rode home on a flatbed. I put in a new battery (raising the system voltage) and goosed the fuel pump back to life. I had not identified the pump as the problem, blaming the low battery voltage instead. I was surprised when the fuel pump failed for good about two weeks later.

 

Note that when the fuel pump dies, the bike behaves as if it had a loss of electrical power. Does not cough or sputter the way a carbureted vehicle will.

 

About the low battery symptom, apparently the pump was working harder and harder the closer it got to seizing up. This knocked the stuffing out of a Panasonic battery that I was using, and I (apparently falsely) blamed the battery.

 

I'll bet this doesn't happen often, but y'all should know...

 

[jbh]

My bike has 36K. I rode today, it has been unplugged from the tender for about 4 days. I rode about 30 minutes and stopped for 1 hour. I rode another 5 minutes to the BMW dealer and stayed about 30 minutes. When I tried to start it the starter would not turn over on the first push of the button. You could here it try but it would not go far. The second push was no better. The third push of the button it turned over. After that I rode about 25 minutes and stopped and when I re-started it, it cranked fine. Another similar trip has same results. I did buy a voltmeter on one of my stops so in the next couple of days I will test some things out.

 

Any chance my starter could be going or the connection to it is corroded?

[Bill Dennes]

Quote:

---------------

Any chance my starter could be going or the connection to it is corroded?

 

---------------

 

Very possible, given the intermittent nature of the problem.

 

I would consider jumping the starter solenoid with a big ol' screwdriver. This might require you to remove the left side footpeg plate for access to the big terminals.

 

If you could catch the thing not cranking with the button and make it crank by jumping the solenoid, you'e probably have a bad solenoid identified. They are available as a repair part from Euro MotoElectrics , part number VAL-SOL2.