bad battery?

well, i got my new valve shims back in and everything is in spec now. giddyup!

so i went in the house, and grabbed my battery, the bike started right up and i revved it a couple times and then i remembered "oh shit, i didn't check the oil" so i shut it off and verified that i had oil, started it up again, and it didn't want to stay running at idle. and finally died.

after that, it would not start - it would crank and crank and crank, but no start. so i put it on the charger. while i was waiting for the battery to get to full charge i verified that i had spark and was getting gas.

(the bonus is that while i was waiting for it to charge, i decided to investigate why one of my turn signals wasn't working - blown bulb. and i also inspected my rear brake pads - they look good to me, so that's a plus too).

anyhow, after the charger indicated full charge on the battery, i was able to start it again. and i could run for a while and rev it up, but the bike won't idle for more than a couple seconds without full choke. and then it dies and wont start (will crank and crank, but no start). charge the battery and it starts.

i'm guessing it's the battery, but am looking for other things to check becasue the battery isn't very old.

so, that's the story.

i'm also wondering if i'm ruining my batteries, because last spring i had to replace 2 other batteries. so, this is how i've been maintaining them - hopefully someone has some insight?

i have one of these:


the light is green when it's charging and flashes green when it pulses to de-sulphate.

i have 6 batteries and i charge them one at a time, once in awhile i'll just swap it over to the next battery. i keep the batteries in my basement, so they're not getting freezing cold.

 

Sounds more like a carburation problem to me. Our bikes don't generate enough juice at idle to charge, so you're running strictly on the battery. A fully charged one has enough power to spin it fast enough and give the ignition full power to get it started, but after a while at idle there's not enough anymore.

Plus what you say about needing full choke, and the way it's behaving... I'd have to say the carbs need attention. Looked at the plugs?

 

If the valves were really out of spec but the carbs set to run with them that way, now that you've adjusted the valves, you may need to re-adjust the carbs.

It could also be something goofy and seemingly unrelated like a plugged gas cap vent; and the battery charging thing is secondary.

What's the output on the battery tender? I use a similar device, a Deltran "Battery Tender Jr." to keep 3-4 batteries happy all winter and have no issues.

 

hmm -

the valves were pretty good: #2 exhaust was tight, #4 intake was loose.

i've also been running it with a temporary tank that is certainly vented well.

started it up again this morning and realized it was only running on cyl's 3 and 4. so now i'm off to a)check spark on 1 and 2, b) open the drain screws on 1 and 2 and verify i'm getting gas.

i'm thinking that the bike was actually flooding out and that the time i spent waiting for the battery to charge was just giving the engine time to "de-gas" and start again.

will report back with results.

i'm so glad i started working on this bike now instead of waiting for riding weather to arrive and then start working on it.

 

1 and 2 both have spark, and i verified both carbs are getting gas. i also swapped the plug wires for 2 and 3 and nothing changed.

i'm gonna give the ol' seafoam a chance to bail me out, but it's looking like i'll be pulling the carbs off. <grumble>

 

i think it was a combination of things - i pulled my carbs and i'm pretty sure #2 enrichment circuit was plugged. i was planning on pulling them anyway as i wanted to install larger pilot jets. (bike had a stumble at 1500-2000 rpms and i think this was the cause).

anyhow, blew everything out and put the carbs back on and 1 and 2 still weren't running. so i decided to swap plugs for 1 and 4 and lo and behold, 1 came to life and 4 no longer fired. so i guess i'm chalkin it up to bad spark plugs.

although, honestly, they didn't look that bad. i think i'm gonna look into my alternator brushes - as i think my real problem is weak spark.

 

When you get it running on all four again start it up and read the battery voltage as you race the engine a little. battery volts shoud read 13.8 to 14.2 vdc and go back to 12 or 13 vdc idling. If you race it up and it stays the same then it's alt. or charge ckt wires .

 

You may want to check your charging system while your at it. (not saying that's your problem)

Tools Needed

Ammeter (stand alone or as part of a continuity/voltage tester)
A couple of feet of 12 gauge or larger wire
10 mm wrench to remove your seat and negative battery cable


Here's How:

Turn a few things on (headlight is good) to drain the battery just a bit. We want the charging system to be pumping out some juice here and if the battery is already fully charged the alternator won't be working hard enough for our purposes.

Remove your seat. Remove the negative battery cable and hook your ammeter in series between the cable and battery (one wire to the cable the other to the negative battery terminal)

Get ready to start your bike.

Touch the negative battery cable to the battery terminal while you're cranking the engine over. Using just your small jumper wire to the gauge could do damage, mainly to the ammeter..

Once the bike is running pull the battery cable away from the terminal. All power will now be running through your jumper cable and ammeter. The ammeter should be showing a charge.

Start turning things on and watch the rate of charge fall.

When "everything" is turned on, high beam, turn signals, spotlights etc. run the engine up to a normal cruise speed (much easier if you have a tachometer) and determine the excess amperage available. Is there enough left to power that heated vest, gloves, another set of lights, a radio or whatever? If you're still charging at idle you're golden! If you have to run the engine up a bit to produce enough charge it'll be something to consider while riding in town.

Remember you need at least 2 amps left to charge the battery.

 

good news: i pulled the alternator cover and i have plenty of brushes left. i did check my charging system last year and it was good.

bad news: it looks like at least one of my coils is bad (or if i'm lucky, just the spark plug wire). i get O.L. on my digital multimeter between plug wires 1 and 4 - it briefly flashed 25 M-ohms a couple times. i took the boots off and no difference in the reading.

didn't check the other coil - dinner was ready . . . that's where i'm quitting today.

 

anybody have any luck with these?
http://www.jcwhitney.com/ignition-coils/p2005149.jcwx

 

Won't work - those will destroy your ignition system.

3 choices for replacement ignition coils:
A - get OEM replacement -- Chacal, ebay, whatever...
B - Dyna DC1-1 coils (preferred), like these:
Dyna DC1-1
C - Accel Supercoil kit #140403, like these:
Accel coils at Dennis Kirk
There have been reports of incorrect resistance issues with the Accel coils, especially for motorcycles, the last few years though....

I have heard tell of another option - coils by Nology called ProFire:
Nology ProFire
Nology Part #152 051 350
They seem to have the right specs - HOWEVER - I can't find anything about anyone ever trying them on our bikes, so who knows...

 

hmm - well, i'm thinking my options are

a) replace spark plugs, cross fingers, keep fingers crossed at all times

b) cut off old wires and check resistance on coils, cross fingers and hope i can splice on new wires

c) do some coil surgery, remove old wires, cross fingers and check resistance on coils, and install new wires

d) drop some major coin on new coils, tighten belt and relax fingers.

 

e) pick up a set of coils from a low-mileage bike off eBay.

Actually, it's easy to "saturate" a plug so that it looks perfectly fine but WILL NOT fire and you won't be able to dry it out.

Set your suspected "bad" plugs somewhere warm and dry and test them again in a week or two before you discard.

 

that's a good tip, fitz. i had the wife pick up some new plugs on her way home from work yesterday (now i have to do the dishes, but it was worth it)l

i'm gonna throw those in and see how it runs and maybe i can get away with just pretending i never ohmed out my coils.

after all, i did have spark on all cylinders. i think i'll verify spark inside the cylinders with my colortune, too - i seem to recall reading somewhere that just because you get spark outside the engine doesn't mean you'll have spark inside the cylinder. something to do with increased pressure and a "wetter" environment.

if that system fails i think i will try rick's method of cramming a piece of copper wire up the spark plug wires and see if the ohms change and/or it'll keep running on all cylinders.

if that don't work, i think i'll cut the wires off near the coil(s), ohm out the coils there and hope i just had bad wires.

the good news is that by the time i figure out that i do need new coils, my tax return should be arriving. . .

 

ok, so i put 4 brand new plugs in and it started up easily. i let it run for awhile and all 4 pipes got hot - so i know it's running on all four cylinders.

i checked the plugs and the insulators were all white on one side and black on the other. they were also all wet.

i put the colortune on plug #1 and it appears to be running slightly lean and every once in awhile i get a bright orange flash.

i'm thinking the wet plugs and occasional bright orange flash both would be symptoms of un-burnt fuel. does it make sense that weak spark would cause this?

 

Spark tends to be an either it do or it don't situation, if it's firing on all 4 but you're getting the symptoms you describe, I would say you have one or more floats set too high or carb pluggage somewhere (or a vacuum leak, like throttle shaft seals) and you're getting blops of "un-atomized" fuel thrown into an otherwise lean condition.

I agree that the wet plugs and occasional bright orange flash indicate "un-burnt fuel" but I don't think ignition is the cause.

Something else is going on. Have you checked/set valve clearances and run a compression test yet?

 

i checked compression last summer and, if memory serves everything was in the neighborhood of 130 (i wrote it down, but now i'm at work and don't have my notebook with me).

i just did my valves and everything is in spec now (#2 exhaust used to be too tight and #4 intake was on the loose side).

i have been seriously battling a too lean condition since day one on this bike - i chalked it up to the 4-into-1 exhaust and replaced the main jets with 124's last summer and shimmed up each needle with 2 small washers. after doing this i was able to run the bike on the highway and get some color on my plugs, but it was stumbling at take off - that's why i put the 41 pilots in. the throttle response seems much better now - even in neutral, up on the center stand, there used to be a slight hesitation when twisting the throttle and that is gone now.

i've checked and checked and rechecked for air leaks with both propane and spraying carb cleaner and couldn't find any. i also coated the outside of my intake boots with RTV just to be safe.

i set my float heights first with a digital caliper and then the clear tube method last summer.

i did ohm out one of my coils and my mutlimeter read open loop and would occasionally flash 25 Mega-Ohms. that is the only reason i'm suspect of the coils. if i hadn't done that, i wouldn't suspect them at all.

as time allows i will double check my compression and re-check my float heights - i'm back to work now, so it might be a few days, but please keep the ideas coming.

 

hmm - i'm starting to think floats are too high. when i set them, they were level on the bench - not tilted forward like the are on the bike.

i'm thinking being on the centerstand, raising the back wheel makes the fuel level even higher.

i'm definitely gonna check the float height on the bike. maybe i'll try jacking up the front of the bike and see if that changes anything . . .

 

You're supposed to set them level, whether on the bench or propping up the bike to get them level.

If you DO have a flaky coil, it could contribute to your symptoms; the meter reading is troublesome.

Might be worth $20 to eliminate it as the cause... http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/82-Yamah ... ccessories

That's a "buy now" not an auction, too.

 

thanks fitz, coils ordered - i must not be very good at ebay - i searched this morning and didn't find anything. and if it turns out the orig coils were ok, i've got an experiment i've been wanting to try anyway.