Strange electric thing poped up

[oldyam80sg]

I had a battery that i thought was bad and bought a load tester-load tester smoked and wires got real hot-take it to auto zone to be safe.

[natemoen]

I had a battery that i thought was bad and bought a load tester-load tester smoked and wires got real hot-take it to auto zone to be safe.

If that was a standard load tester, that is what it is supposed to do.

The load testers basically have heating elements in them to simulate a load. If it was brand new then there would be a oily coating on those heating elements that would burn off on the first use.

Now if it was the insulated leads that connect to the battery that started smoking then there was a problem...

[oldyam80sg]

It was a cheap one and got returned to the store.

[CaptonZap]

I took out the battery today and it showed 13.5 amps in the morning, checked it tonight and its 12.4

Uhh, I hope you meant Volts. Did you take all wires off of the battery after you charged it up?
Here is the routine.

Take the battery out.
Charge it up.
Disconnect charger.
Measure and record VOLTAGE.
Wait one hour and measure and record again. This is called resting voltage.
It will have dropped a little, probably less than a volt.
Let set for 24 hours.
Measure and record voltage. Should be 12.2 to 12.6 V
If the voltage goes down more than half to three quarter of a volt, below 12.0 V, your battery has an internal short, or is old, and you said that it was sorta new, so that is not the deal.
All of this is done with nothing hooked to the battery.
If the battery maintains the 12.4 V for 24 hours, the battery is probably good. If it keeps dropping, bad battery is watts the matter.
CZ

[Jeffintampa]

scooby doo

Well, heres what I have done

Charged the battery in the bike, took it out and tested 13.5 4-5 hours latter it was 12.4 got up this am and it was 12.4

took it to autozone and they told me the battery showed half charge, 12.4 and did a 200 crank and testeded good. Did a 150 crank and it tested good. Got it on a 2 amp tickled

If its not the battery, and every thing is clean and connected good, what else could cause the leak

[CaptonZap]

Get an amp meter or a test light, and hook the ground cable up to the battery. Put the amp meter or light between the red battery lead and the positive battery terminal. Does the meter read any milliamps, or the light glow, even faintly?
If not, check the brushes in the starter motor.
If so, start down the wiring line and unplug the next plug. As soon as the current stops when you unplug a connector, you have your problem spot. I don't have a wiring diagram for your bike, so I can't be more specific, but you get the idea. I think the regulator is next in line, or the auxilary power terminals?
CZ

[Jeffintampa]

battery is still charging

Hi put battery on a tickle charge around 9 am as of now 7:45 it hasn't green lighted will check as described thank Zap

[Jeffintampa]

chit

Well,
Put the battery in tonight and went for a ride, oops no brake lite or turn signals and neutral light. I had gone in the fuse box and shined up those fuse holder clips. The signals one the fuse wasn't clipped all the way or something, I pinched the clips a bit to hold better and went to click the fuse in and one tab broke off, ccccchhhhiiiiitttt I got creative and put the old aluminum foil around the one and clipped in the lower. works

Whats the fix for that? will be hard to do but replace that clip off that small wire. Does anyone know the size?

Gonna ride it to work in the morning see if it starts after work wish me luck.

Thank you all for your help

[Schming]

Well,
Put the battery in tonight and went for a ride, oops no brake lite or turn signals and neutral light. I had gone in the fuse box and shined up those fuse holder clips. The signals one the fuse wasn't clipped all the way or something, I pinched the clips a bit to hold better and went to click the fuse in and one tab broke off, ccccchhhhiiiiitttt I got creative and put the old aluminum foil around the one and clipped in the lower. works

Whats the fix for that? will be hard to do but replace that clip off that small wire. Does anyone know the size?

Gonna ride it to work in the morning see if it starts after work wish me luck.

Thank you all for your help

Hi Jeff, most of us upgrade to a new style fuse panel.

Here's one link, of many, from the Modifications forum:

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14052

[Jeffintampa]

Thanks

Well been a good bike week, did not do anything but start it and drive it as normal. No problems. Tomorrow I am going to pull the battery and see at what level it is charged.

Thanks for all your help, if anyone has a link on were to buy those fuse holder wire clips please let me know.

[bikerphil]

Check out post #10 in the link below, Topcat sells members the replacement fuse block that uses the blade fuses. Problem with replacing the OEM clips in the old style box is the glass fuses aren't as readily available, hard to find if you're in a jam.

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11786

[James England]

Here's another pic

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Jeff,

Yep, I still provide/resell these fuse blocks..mine is a 6 slot.

What you can do as a temporary(SAFER) fix is to pull the wires from that fuse circuit with the broken blades/clips....put 1/4" crimp on wire connetors onto the wires....then get a spade fuse and connect it to the wires bypassing the OEM broken brass clips. Then when you get the replacement fuseblock, you can just plug in the wires onto the blocks pins.

However, you may want to replace the crimp on connectors with the ones that I also provide /sell with the block....see the advert that BikerPhil linked to....scroll down to post #10. The link/tech tip that Schming provided is good info on installation.

As you saw from your charging tests....the bike/engine doesn't reach maximum charging current until ~3 grand or above....so when you're riding to work, you want to be sure you're running it in a gear that keeps your rpms at or above the 3k range, and realize that it also has to power the headlight, ignition, driving/brake/turn signals, ignition, AND also charge the battery!!! So...lugging along at 2k rpm and you're probably not generating enough juice to properly charge the system.

Aside from the battery to frame ground cable, don't forget the ENGINE to frame ground strap down low on the engine/middle drive case to frame connection. Also, I think you have found the 3 large white harness connections behind the fuseblock mounting plate...the connectors for the ALT to the harness and ensured they are clean/corrosion free, and not partially melted!!

T.C.

[Crusty Snippets]

Fuse block

I want a fuse block. Previous twits removed it and put in inline fuses. I have a fuse block from my spare bike, but I like the TC one better.
Some days we learn stuff when we least expect it.

Unkle Crusty*

[James England]

The Geezer rectifier/regulator gives full charging at much lower revs than OEM and this enables the battery to still charge in heavy traffic situations. I fitted one to my last project. Well worth using one if in traffic a lot...