Ye Olde Fazer is dying...

[Screwdriver]

Well it had to happen I suppose. I only really use it for nipping off to the hospital and back and this time, yesterday morning, I hit the button and it died. Total electrical blackout. A tiny unusual click and nothing.

Left it for a while and the lights came back on. Fiddled with fuses and no luck. Back on the tube and try again today.

Same, same. All looks good, hit the starter and there's the merest "tick" and lights out.



Poor old thing is frazzled and its brain is going. Most likely a short somewhere. The starter tries to start but when the ignition is on volts drop from 13v to 9.9. Slowly floats back up but drops again on the button. Racking my poor old frazzled brains to establish a method for quickly finding the culprit but I fear it's going to be a long hard slog through a mile of old modified wiring.

Coming to a thread near you: recommend me a new bike...

[Taipan]

CB1000R its here waiting for you!

[weeksy]

sounds like just a fucked battery to me.

[Lutin]

Or it could be the started solenoid.

Here's a fault finding chart.

Hopefully it'll help.

[Lutin]

Sorry, can't seem to edit my own posts at the moment (on going problem it seems) anyway that link I posted is for charging system. Sorry.

I'm sure there's a similar pdf file on the web somewhere for general fault finding.

[A_morti]

sounds like just a fucked battery to me.

What he said.

A cell has failed internally, this lets the battery show you good voltage but only until a load is applied.

[Skub]

Battery would be my first port of call too. It's a ballache when the problem is simple and you go looking for more complex issues,only to be back where you started!

[Screwdriver]

Hmm. Battery sounds plausible. I recently left it on charge/maintain for no good reason. Battery is virtually new!

So it hadn't even occurred to me it might be that. I'll go try jumping it off another one...

(If that doesn't work I'll have a look at the fault finding thing).

Thanks all.

[Screwdriver]

sounds like just a fucked battery to me.

Spot on. It was/is fucked. I knew you were right as soon as you said it.

Ordinarily I would say "I don't know why I didn't think of that" but I DO know. It's a fucking brand new battery is why!!



I probably haven't used it a dozen times. What the fuck is going on!! Seriously are batteries only supposed to last six months now?

Anyway, thanks a million. I was blind to that possibility but there is every chance Imay have "cooked" it after a 200 mile round trip and stuck back on a "smart" charger. "Smart" as in fuck knows what it might be doing to my battery.

I have a maintainer station in the garage...



...and a fly lead for the bike (this was when it had a battery destroying Meta alarm system).



So what I need now is a recommendation for a battery that will last more than ten minutes...

[weeksy]

Default answer for me is Yuasa.

As for why, it happens sometimes.

[Screwdriver]

Default answer for me is Yuasa.

As for why, it happens sometimes.

Thanks a million.

[SSS]

Wot Weeksy said... Yuasa.

I havent bought that many batteries, but i can tell you even quality ones - in this case Exide - havent lasted long either (i can only surmise failed cells). This on a Suzuki Quad Bike and on the RVF. Thats two in the last 4 years ive had fail prematurely.

Once is unfortunate, twice is careless

[Bustaspoke]

You're wasting your money If the charging system's faulty,before buying a new battery I would charge the battery again & monitor how many volts the charging system is puttting out.

[Screwdriver]

You're wasting your money If the charging system's faulty,before buying a new battery I would charge the battery again & monitor how many volts the charging system is puttting out.

Battery is sitting at 13v. Spot on. First thing I checked.

It has never had a single issue before this moment. Always started easily, never struggled.

I will be double checking that "smart" charger", maybe invest in a better trickle charge system.

[Screwdriver]

Shame it's fixed because I decided on a Husqvarna Nuda 900R. Kinda looking forwards to being even more of an asshole than Royal Jordanian.

Looks like great fun!

[weeksy]

Shame it's fixed because I decided on a Husqvarna Nuda 900R. Kinda looking forwards to being even more of an asshole than Royal Jordanian.

Looks like great fun!

You actually find one?

[wull]

13v at what? Idle? 5k rpm? Try it under load, lights on etc etc.

I don’t know the Fazer spec off the top of my head but the majority of bikes should be between 13.8-14.5v @ 5k rpm, if the charge system is working well usually you’d see the figures above across the board, from idle to full rpm it would stay the same, this would indicate a regulator rectifier that’s working extremely well.

For example all the manuals I have at hand state 14-15v @ 5000rpm

[Bustaspoke]

^^^^ This ^^^^^

[Screwdriver]

13v at what? Idle? 5k rpm? Try it under load, lights on etc etc.

I don’t know the Fazer spec off the top of my head but the majority of bikes should be between 13.8-14.5v @ 5k rpm, if the charge system is working well usually you’d see the figures above across the board, from idle to full rpm it would stay the same, this would indicate a regulator rectifier that’s working extremely well.

For example all the manuals I have at hand state 14-15v @ 5000rpm

No the battery.

This battery:



I haven't installed wireless charging so the alternator output is moot. I have no reason to believe it is faulty. I'll go with Weeksy and put it down to rogue battery then make test my "smart" charger to see what it's actually doing. I will also double check the alternator output when I fit the precious new YUASA battery....

[wull]

13v at what? Idle? 5k rpm? Try it under load, lights on etc etc.

I don’t know the Fazer spec off the top of my head but the majority of bikes should be between 13.8-14.5v @ 5k rpm, if the charge system is working well usually you’d see the figures above across the board, from idle to full rpm it would stay the same, this would indicate a regulator rectifier that’s working extremely well.

For example all the manuals I have at hand state 14-15v @ 5000rpm

No the battery.

This battery:



I haven't installed wireless charging so the alternator output is moot. I have no reason to believe it is faulty. I'll go with Weeksy and put it down to rogue battery then make test my "smart" charger to see what it's actually doing. I will also double check the alternator output when I fit the precious new YUASA battery....

I thought you were meaning the charge rate was 13v.

As for the alternator output it’s not actually the above, it outputs roughly 65v AC each phase,it’s the regulator rectifier that will give you the 14-15v DC that’s required.

With regards to it being a goosed battery I agree, it’s always the first go to check, what I do is either use a known good battery or use a jumper pack, if it fires up then you know it’s the battery, if it doesn’t then you look elsewhere, things like the starter solenoid etc.

Also, once fired up always check charge rate, as has been said no point replacing one thing when it’s actually something else that’s causing the problem, I’ve seen it so many times over the years where a burnt out stator will cause regulator rectifiers and batteries to fail and folk replace them time and time again before realising the stator is goosed.