Mechanics or Bikers! Ideas...?

Factual Questions
1

Hey everyone! I know from lurking on here for a long time that there are a bunch of you folks who ride motorcycles… I’m hoping someone might have a suggestion for me.

I have a 2001 Honda Shadow Sabre, about 11,200 miles on it. Bought it in May 2001. Sometime last winter the battery died. In a fit of impatience, I got a new battery, and went on with my life under the blissfully ignorant hope that maybe the original battery was simply “no good”.

Yesterday, I hop on the bike, ride the 15 minutes to a dunkin donuts and stop for a drink. Probably 10 minutes later I get ready to leave for my friend’s house. Bike doesn’t start. Cranks a bit, but doesn’t turn over. Then, of course, stops cranking and starts clicking. OK, battery has no charge… Call a tow truck, jumpstart it, ride home and throw it on the battery tender.

But now I’m stumped. This is a bike that gets ridden several times a week, never goes into storage, and kills batteries approx. every 6000 miles. I’m supposed to leave on Friday to go riding around upstate NY with my cousin, and I could replace the battery (again) but the thought of being 300 miles or more from home with an unreliable bike doesn’t thrill me…

So I’m bringing it to the honda dealer tomorrow… Thoughts on what I should ask them? I am not a mechanic, have almost no mechanical knowledge…so I don’t just want to give it to them and say “Battery’s dead”… I’d like to know what to expect…

Thanks for any help!
-Jon

Oh yeah, just re-read this. One other thing I noticed…I put the bike on the battery tender yesterday at around 3pm, got in my car and drove to my friends house (nothing like being 2 hours late to a friend who’s doing YOU a favor! :smack: ). When I got home around 6:30, 6:45ish, the charger was hot to the touch, the red light was still on, no flashing green, no steady green… I don’t recall it taking that long to charge the battery, nor do I recall the charger ever getting hot like that. May not be significant, but thought I’d mention it!

2

Have them check the stator although I’m sure they will. That’s what keeps your battery charged on your bike.

3

Tell them what you said here. Exactly what is happening and time intervals. Sounds like you have a short, or a shot regulator or alternator.

4

I’d go for the regulator, if this goes faulty it will dry up your battery due to overheating.

Problem here is that if you replace just the regulator, you may have only cured a symptom, the rectifier may well be faulty too.

Try get replacements from a bike breaker, go for both, and make sure that the alternator is well earthed, if it is not then the voltage could float high.

You might consider replacing the alternator if you can get a good price.

Do not go the main dealers for spares, especially honda, the cost is a thing of fabulous imagination!!

5

Thanks for the ideas guys! I just hope that whatever the problem is I can get it sorted out before Friday so I can go on my trip!

Oh, casdave, the bike is still under warrantee, so I have no problem making American Honda pay for repairs!

-Jon

6

My bet is that something is wrong with the charging system. Beyond that, you might make sure that the battery is secured. A loose battery can literally be shaken apart inside.

7

Well, in case anyone is curious, I just got back from the dealer. He put a voltmeter on the battery, and it appears like the charging system is putting out some current, just not enough to charge the battery unless riding at highway speeds. He described it sort of like “The voltage increases as the revs increase, but not as fast or as high as it should.”

So, at least I know it’s nothing strange, like a little alien living in my headlight stealing my power to run his little inter-dimensional time-space warping machine.

Now the big question is can they diagnose the exact problem in between taking care of everyone who made appointments, order parts, have them overnighted, fix the bike, and have it ready to go by the time they close at 7pm thursday, so I can leave on Friday morning…

Time will tell…

-Jon

8

Even if they can’t fix it in time you can still ride it. The bike doesn’t really need the charging system to run. It’s only really important for starting. Just make sure you park it at the top of a hill (or at least not at the bottom of a hill) and that way you can jumpstart it if necessary.

How hard this is depends on how big your bike is (your model designations are different to ours so I don’t know what capacity the bike you’ve described is). However, I’ve successfully jump started my 1000cc Vtwin Moto Guzzi a number of times (don’t ask).

Going by what your mechanic said it still charges at highway speeds so, if you’re running at highway speeds during your trip, you should be alright.

I know this is not a long term solution but it will get you through if you can’t get it fixed before you go away.

9

Yeah, I have had to push start a guzzi a time or two.

Also, dont be afraid to jump start it off of a car. I know, there are people who will tell you thats bad, but those are people who dont understand basic electricity. If you leave the car turned off, and do it reasonably quickly(so you dont overheat the battery on the bike), it will hurt nothing. If its an old brit bike, its best to unplug the zener diode, but not absolutely neccesary.

10

Jumping it from a car, bike, whatever doesn’t bother me in an emergency, it would just get annoying doing it at every gas stop over 4 days, plus leaving the hotel every morning, plus if I decide to stop somewhere in the catskills to take a photo…

As to push starting… Maybe I’m just an out-of-shape wimp, or maybe I’m doing it wrong, but I couldn’t ever get my first bike, a Suzuki Savage 650 push started and that includes running it down a steep hill! That bike weighed about 350lbs, the current Honda is about 300lbs heavier. I think if I even attempted a push start I’d have a stroke!

Hopefully it doesn’t matter! Just got off the phone with Kevin from the shop, they tell me its the regulator and rectifier, they had the parts overnighted, and I should have it back tomorrow in working condition!

-Jon

11

a savage is a single…I would rather pushstart a guzzi than a 650 single…

Actually, the heavier bike would be a lot easier to push than a 650 single also. More inertia to cary it through.

12

Despite bdgr’s backwards understanding of inertia, it should be easy to bumpstart your bike, because it’s a cruiser.

Shift it into second, and then waddle/run it to a decent speed with the clutch held in. This is far easier going downhill. Pop the clutch and you’re off.

I had to do this in a parking garage last week with my 750 after I flooded the carbs :frowning: It’s certainly a thrill to have the engine catch as you’re aimed straight at a concrete wall.

13

Do not jump-lead start your bike if it has electronic injection.

Bump starting on such a machine will be very difficult if not impossible, the fuel pump has to get to pressure first.

14

What Guzzi owner hasn’t? Could be worse, could be a Ducati - we all know why Ducati riders don’t go out in the rain.

15

Adding to Barbarian’s comments on pushstarting: the trick, as he says, is to do it in 2nd gear, not 1st. It also helps if you stand up on the pegs and then sit down as heavily as possible on the seat just as you’re releasing the clutch - you get better traction from the rear wheel that way.

16

You could always ride the last few miles before you know you’re getting off in one gear lower. This will put your RPMs up to highway speed and should help charge the battery. I do this all the time when I’m running too much electrical stuff on my bike.

On a side note have you added any type of lights or anything like that? You might have a loose conection somewhere that is not allowing the battery to get recharged.

17

Not exactly sure what you mean by backward understanding of inertia, but here is what I am talking about.

When you try and push start light weight, single cylinder bike, you dump the clutch and the bike is not heavy enough to push the piston past the compression stroke and it stops, or the rear wheel skips. to over come this, you have to use your own weight/strength. On a heavier bike, the added weight keeps the bike moving forward past the compression stroke, giving it a chance to fire. I have had to push start lite singles before, mainly brits, and its a bitch.

18

Although I admit that I have never jump started a bike with electronic injection, I can’t imagine why this would be a problem. as far as the bike electrical system is concerned, 12 volts is 12 volts, and it is only gonna pull as many amps as it needs. The only thing that can go wrong with jumping a bike off of a car that I am aware of is that the battery can be charged to fast, warping the plates. If you dont leave it hooked up any longer than absolutely neccesary, than thats not really a problem. Also, with some of the older style regs, like the zenner diode on brit bikes, they could overheat trying to regulate the battery on the car, but usually thats not a problem either…not that they actually really worked much in the first place…

19

Bdgr

Jump starting is usually carried out from a vehicle whose engine is running, if your battery is low there will be a potential for a large charging current to be drawn to it, which would be fine once the connection has been made, but when you are actually applying the clips you often get some sparking and arcing, some electronic modules really do not like this, and some alarm systems will die.
Honda, with its HSS system, which has an inbuilt immobiliser, warn that doing this may void the warranty.

Jump starting from charged battery is ok but not recommended, best to take out the installed battery and replace with a charged one, or at least remove it until the bike is running(but then replacing whilst the bike is ticking over can be a bit amusing unless you have insulated tools to avoid shorting down to chassis.

20

My old 850T had a bad solinoid once, and since I didnt have enough equity to take out a loan and buy another one(guzzi owners will understand this), I had to push start it every where I went. Then I figured out that the solinoid is the same as a VW bug, and I was off again (the voltage reg crosses over to VW microbus as well…dont know what the starter is off of)