Dead Battery After a ride.

Ive changed batterys once to eliminate a dead celled battery. Not the case. My next question is what else could it be? I have checked the voltage at the battery and at roughly 4K is jumps around from 12.5 to 14 ish. Im thinking my reg/rec is shot.


Its a 81 CSR 1000

No guarantees, could be a stator winding finding a ground too. Or poor ground at rectifier so on.

Do a search, get the numbers and have at it.

If not already done, would assure good solid ground connection where negative battery cable attaches to engine or frame. And also assure battery terminals are clean and tight.

The specific gravity test is a good indicator of a bad cell in the battery. And a load test should determine whether a battery is serviceable.

Good Luck!

I guess the battery isnt really dead. It still has 12.5 volts. And right when I turn the ignition on it will crank totally normally, nice and fast. After a Few seconds it slows down to a crawl. Which makes me wonder if its just a bad ground, or starter.

My 400's battery did the same thing. Great voltage, but after a couple of cranks would crawl. Checked the electrolite (sp?) and couldn't even float one ball.

Tried using a process to recharge the electrolite but in the end I had to buy a new battery. Which is a real pain 'cause all I'm trying to do is sell it!

But two batterys in a row killed off? Thats seems unlikely. Unless the jumping battery voltage is frying them.

Had a similar problem. The problem was the insulation where the stator wiring plugs into the harness, under the left cover behind the starter, had gotten old and cracked and fell off allowing two pins to short against each other. Check the wires there. Shorting that out will kill a battery too. Because of this, I now double wrap the wires in that area to prevent shorting out...chris3

As a motorcycle ages, many items break down and either corrode(the electrical contacts on switches and cables)or lose the ability to retain oil(like engine seals or electrical cable glands) and leak creating problems to troubleshoot.

Periodic/scheduled maintenance is the only way to stay on top of this problem.If you ignore it some day the bike will either not start or it strands you.

Another suggestion is to at least once a month go through the bike and check all the nuts,bolts,screws for proper tightness. Motorcycles, be they dirt,street,cruiser,or sportbike all have different vibration frequencies that affect the parts on the vehicle. The use of the correct type and grade of the thread locking compounds will reduce the vibration so we are not surprised when enjoying the sport.