| Author | Message | ||
     Greg_e |
OK, so I have a brand new Scorpion battery fresh off the charger with what the charger says is 100% charge. Hit the starter button and here is engage and try to turn the motor then clicking from not enough voltage. Hit it again and it turns over and fires. Volt meter shows going up to 14 volts while riding. Stop to air up the tires after riding a bit, hit the starter and barely turns over with again wicked low voltage. Run to gas station to fill up tank and voltage never made it back up to the nearly 14 volts. Fill tank and it starts a little better but still low voltage, now showing 14 volts when riding. So do I have a brand new AGM battery that is dead or do I have a starter that is wrecking batteries? Need to pull battery and see if I can get a load test somewhere. | ||
| Glitch |
Sounds like the starter is dragging, unless of course you ended up with a bad battery. VR and stator are alright I take it. | ||
| Greg_e |
VR is new about 300 miles ago and I assume stator is fine since it produces the correct voltage. Going to either get an auto store to load test it or buy a 100 amp load tester soon. This battery now has about 15 miles on it so it is essentially still brand new. | ||
| Panhead_dan |
Sounds to me like you need to clean some grounding points. Might as well clean the hot side too. | ||
| Buford |
Yeah, sounds like a grounding issue maybe? My new Scorpion spins the XB over really well. No more clock resets etc. | ||
| Greg_e |
That's why I bought that battery. The hot side is good but I'll need to check the ground points and make sure everything is OK. It was working fine until I changed the break in oil to synthetic back in May and then I started having problems. | ||
| Djohnk |
Yup, those grounds on the XB's are finicky. | ||
| Greg_e |
Bought a Schumacher BT-100 100 amp heater (load tester) and this battery definitely tests bad. The needle never holds a spot. I also tested my old Harley battery that I thought was going bad, even after sitting two months I got a sustained 400 CCA rating. Did this three time with the same result. Came back 30 minutes later and did it again with the same result. Put it back on charge and probably just going to put it back in. Need to check grounds and if it still has trouble then it will be time for a new starter motor. So where are the important grounds? I need battery to frame. Frame to engine up on top where the upper strap bridges the frame and isolation mount. Where else do I need to clean? | ||
| Panhead_dan |
There are threads about this already here but what I did is to remove the battery and the cables. I saw where the cables attach and then examined how that part makes connection with the next part, took those apart and cleaned them and so on, cleaning connections all the way there. Depending on your model, the routes may differ from mine, I have no idea. One other thing I did was to run a heavy gauge wire from batt neg to one of the through bolts on the starter. Haven't cleaned the battery box connection or the frame ground since. Been about 4 years now. (Message edited by panhead_dan on October 28, 2012) | ||
| Greg_e |
The additional ground cable makes a lot of sense and I'll probably do this too, especially if I need to replace the starter. Everything is going to get a coating of CorrosionX when it goes back together too. Specifically I have a 2003 XB9R | ||
| Greg_e |
New battery holds at about the 1000CCA position with the above tester. Haven't tried to start it 'cause it was miserable last weekend and it's cold now. Probably won't get it running again this year. |
