Battery Parasite By Bashan (Read 6,232 times)

[Bashan]

I took your advice and installed a cutoff switch:

I still want to determine the draw down but this will give me a little breathing room on the timeframe. Thanks for the suggestion. I will do the drawdawn test on the starter today. Rich

[nulldevice]

While you have that cut-off switch in there, consider putting something over it, like a section of bicycle tube for electrical insulation or wrap it with electrical tape. That is a lot of exposed metal with enough current potential to weld a wrench or screwdriver to the frame.

[mike6736]

Al your right as my clock too is off the system. I went north for 3 weeks amd came back and the Magnum and Honda both started back up.

Mike

[Bashan]

Apr 12, 2012 20:28:20 GMT -6 nulldevice said:

Try checking out the starter solenoid for resistance across the big terminals. It should indicate an open circuit.

[/b][/quote]
I did as you suggested and set up the test by unhooking the battery and attaching test leads to the solenoid:

On resistance you can see I got about 23K ohms:

Continuity was an open circuit:

I've got a better battery cut off switch I'm going to install when I get some time. Right now I'm putting the Fashion back together after installing a new speedometer cable. Of course most of the front plastic had to come off to get to it. Rich

[nulldevice]

Get used t0 the Tupperware removal. You have to take it off do do anything except change oil (maybe) and put gas in it. I'm one of the clumsy ones. By the time I figure out how to do it I have broken a half dozen fastener tabs in the process.

[Bashan]

Apr 26, 2012 21:57:12 GMT -6 nulldevice said:

I'm one of the clumsy ones. By the time I figure out how to do it I have broken a half dozen fastener tabs in the process.

[/b][/quote]
Welcome to the club pal, I'm a bit of a tab snapper myself. I keep saying I'm going to devise a hinge system on my body panels but never get around to it.

I did get the new cutoff switch installed, I put it on the cowling under the seat and it works great. The top of the battery looks a lot better too. Rich

[trvstlh]

BASHAN, 1st i wanna say thanks for all the help and advice you share, now when doing the drain test with rectifier unplugged, i have a 2 plug rectifier, am i disconnecting both plugs for the drain test? thanks in advance

[Bashan]

For the first test leave everything hooked up. Don't undo the rectifier or anything else, just unhook the positive side of the battery and set it up like this:

If you have a significant drain, like around 10ma, then you know you have a vampire sucking your battery when the key is off. Then you have to start unplugging things and watch the meter, when it drops down to near zero you've found your vampire. Start with the rectifier, if you've got a bad diode it will leak. In my case I suspect unplugging the dash would stop the leak, I just haven't had the time to take it apart. Rich

[justguy1]

Ok. this is what I was looking for .. Just not too sure how to install the cut off switch... I am going to try to hook this up since I now have a fashion and am charging the battery every night.. Its a pain. Im afraid to ride it and stop then the battery not starting.. So im going to try to somehow install the toggle switch to shut the battery off. but If someone can give me an idea how to hook the wiring out I would greatly appreciate it..

[tvnacman]

is the main fuse easy to get to ?

John

[Bashan]

I've had quite a few PMs asking about this thread so I'm going to try to answer all of them with this post. First, the switch that I installed is made just for batteries. I wouldn't feel comfortable with a toggle unless it was industrial strength. I put the switch in the cable that runs from the negative battery terminal to the frame ground:

There's a red cable on the negative side of the battery only because I had a red cable handy. I would have used black if I had one:

Someone asked what they had to do to the solenoid to install the switch. Nothing, leave it alone. The battery switch just breaks the ground to the frame so the system can't drain.

Now, to answer what the wires on the solenoid are.... the solenoid has a four wire plug into it:

That's a 20 amp fuse sitting in there, it doesn't come out easy so I don't think popping it out is a practical answer for the draining.

Actually the solenoid comes apart:

The positive side from the battery connects through the fuse to the R/W and R wires. The G/W and Y/R wires connect directly to the solenoid and close the contact when the starter button is pushed:

The R/W wire comes off of the red regulator wire and I believe is the charging wire. The red wire runs to the ignition and energizes the black wire and the blue/black wires when the ignition switch is turned on. I'm sure on this because when you turn on the ignition switch the blue/black wire and black wire give you this:

The air cleaner is for a V8 with three two barrels and I got it at Advance Auto. The connector is a 2" radiator hose cut to length. I got really lucky that the air cleaner provides just the right amount of vacuum for the carb. It runs perfect and increased my top end and pick up:

The idea there was to lose the airbox which was leaking oil all over the case. One other thing I promised to mention. When my Fashion sits for a week it is hard to start because the bowl dries out.I solved this by injecting about two ounces of gas down the bowl vent with a 2 cycle oil mixer. It starts right up after I do this:

Whew! I think I answered all the PMs now. Time for a brewskie.

[justguy1]

Bashan, gotta say your illustrations are amazing and very helpful to us new fashion owners...

Question, Don't you crush the air filter when you put the seat on?? That air filter is right under the seat.. My big arse would crush that. But I love the fact that you get more top end speed.. Anything I can do to get more top end speed I need .. im going to start with new rollers and eventually changing out the air box..

[Bashan]

Dec 27, 2012 17:41:04 GMT -6 justguy1 said:

Question, Don't you crush the air filter when you put the seat on??

Here's a better pic of the air cleaner position. You can see it's below the cross brace so there's plenty of room:

I don't know if your airbox is a PITA but I was getting oil on the case and I thought I had a base gasket leak because there was oil all over this area:

I eventually figured out that it was coming out of this odd little bloke on the bottom of the filter housing:

Further, I determined that the oil was coming from the crankcase breather vapor trap. I decided to chuck the whole airbox which is quite a collection of plastic parts:

The arrow points to the filter I put on the breather hose and you can see how much room I have on the left side of the engine now:

There is no oil mess now on any of the parts.

[lencho]

I too have had my battery go dead after a week or so leaving my bike parked. I was able to determine the lions share of the drain was caused by the alarm/remote starter system. Here is what I did to address the problem.

installed a rocker switch.



Located the red power wire for the alarm system, cut it and soldered the rocker switch in line. Now I can kill the power to the alarm when the bike is parked in my garage which results in my battery remaining charged


Amp draw with alarm switched on.


Amp draw with alarm switched off.

Lencho

[Bashan]

Thanks Lencho, very informative post. I think a lot of people with alarms have battery problems and don't realize what it is. I'm assuming those are mA's on your meter. I've never been able to get a concrete number for what is considered acceptable drain, but for scooters it seems to be 5 mA or below. Certainly the 10.32 is off the cliff, less than 1 however is great. I don't have an alarm but I think the LCD dash is drawing it down.