The battery was my first thought too. That was the first thing that I had to replace after I bought my bike. I went to the Honda dealership and got one that I knew would work. Steve: the '83's had a weak electrical system so don't screw around with second-rate batteries any more. That's a really nice ride that you have there and you got a good deal so any money invested is well spent.
________________________________ From: Dennis Hammerl <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, January 24, 2010 9:04:55 PM Subject: Re: [Nighthawk Lovers] '83 550 SC Electrical Issues How interesting. You have a problem and have started to look in the wrong place first. Your description is very good. Why ? Because it points in a totally different direction than you are going in. Let's gather some information first. How many miles are on this ? What brand is the battery and if you bought it from a source that did the proper pre-delivery service before selling it to you. You say it goes flat quite quickly. That is the sign of a poor battery. Was it load tested after being charged ? It matters not that it is new, a battery must be properly serviced before being put into use. An improperly serviced battery will NEVER be at 100% no matter what. A low quality battery that is not treated properly before being placed in service will cause starting AND charging problems. So much for part one. #2 The question about mileage is important because the starter may be going bad. You've done a ton of work on this and probably started it quite often without riding it enough at any given time to recharge the battery. The starter may be drawing a lot more than it should as well. SO... Take the battery to a dealer ( I know and I don't want to hear it. DEAL WITH IT) have it charged and tested on a load bank. G / NG ? Once you resolve that issue, get the bike started and check the alternator output. A battery that has less than 10.5 volts will not have a functional charging system. The charging system can be checked only with a good battery. All of your resistance checks indicate a good system. A check of the charging rate is called for. Do that with an ammeter inline with the battery. Use an ammeter with a +- 10A range. Disconnect the ground cable from the battery and hook up the ammeter inline with the battery. DO NOT START the bike this way. Hold the ground cable terminal against the battery post to start it. (trying to start it through the ammeter will cause the ammeter to fail) Once running, separate the terminal from the post and read the charge rate. Those bikes begin to charge at a point above 2000rpm. The charge rate will be high for a time and then fall off as the battery is recharged. If the bike has no / low charge rate, there are further checks. That's enough for now. I'm not there, but I see a brand X battery that's been poorly serviced, abused by repeated starts and than ridden a short distance with a non-functional charging system.. then failed completely. If I hadn't seen this a thousand times already, I wouldn't be quite so sure. I am. Get PO'd at me and scream. I'm used to it. ________________________________ From: bull city <[email protected]> To: Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers! <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, January 24, 2010 4:26:58 PM Subject: [Nighthawk Lovers] '83 550 SC Electrical Issues I had my $600 garage find running with a new battery and rebuilding the clutch and front brake. After a couple of weekends of working on it, and only taking ti out for about a 5 minutes ride the bike went dead as I pulled into my driveway. I tried to restart but the battery just didn’t have any power. I let it sit for about two months as Christmas passed. I’m figuring the problem is somewhere in the rectifier/ alternator. I went and got the battery recharged at autozone, tried to restart the bike but the battery just didn’t have the juice and went dead within 5 minutes (if that) of trying to start it. So I have not been able to do any running tests on the bike. But here is what I have done: Checked the rectifier using a multimeter to check resistance between each of the 3 yellow leads to the green ground. It registered zero ohms on each with one polarity, when the polarity was reversed there was no current on any. So I am assuming that means it good. I found this method on-line at http://www.dansmc.com/electricaltesting.htm . I have the manual but have no idea what the tests are that the manual calls for (Sanwa SP-10D, etc...) Checked the alternator by seeing if there is connectivity on the winding. All yellow leads coming from the alternator show connectivity. The manual says to check this on the “alternator side”of the connector. I am assuming this means the winding is good. The next step in the manual says to check resistance levels on the “harness” side, which I am assuming is the leads to the rectifier? I am NOT getting connectivity between the yellow leads going into the rectifier. Is this what I am supposed to be doing? Next is says to check between each yellow lead and the green ground, which I have and it shows no connectivity, which it supposedly should not. I don’t have a running bike at this point to I cant check any running tests. So, what should I check at this point? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers?hl=en.
