White crud from battery

Was working on the bike and noticed the battery tray had a bunch of white crap on the side where the battery has the little overflow piece. I didn't have a hose on it, so apparently it was just dripping out and down the tray.

Do these batteries constantly leak? I thought it was just a little from time to time... but this looks pretty significant.
Thanks

That's the electrolyte from the battery. Could be that you had it to full, or the bike is charging to high of voltage causing it to boil. If the battery is bad it will also boil do to it thinking it needs to charge it. That's why the first thing is a good battery.
Refill and slow charge the battery, then test it. If good, put it back in, with a drain tube, and check the voltage across the posts when running at 4K RPM.

If your regulator isn't working right, it can charge the battery above the 'safe' level, which is what boils the electrolyte.

There are lots of other ways that the white 'crud' can get out, including leaning the bike too far or tipping the bike.

In general, a little bit of this is not too concerning, but it sounds like you have more than a little bit. Like Motorhead said, step 1 would be a new battery (this one could be toast because of overcharging, or overcharging because it's old or shorted internally). Install the overflow tube and point it at something you don't care about (like the concrete in front of your tire). After that, check your charging voltage (should not exceed 13.6 volts at any RPM). I always change the regulator and rectifier at the same time on my bike that has separate units and not surprisingly, when they are one unit I don't get a vote.

david-b wrote: Was working on the bike and noticed the battery tray had a bunch of white crap on the side where the battery has the little overflow piece. I didn't have a hose on it, so apparently it was just dripping out and down the tray.

Do these batteries constantly leak? I thought it was just a little from time to time... but this looks pretty significant.
Thanks

After doing the battery checks, you should connect tubing to the battery vent & route it towards the ground, away from the chain & mufflers.

I've been fighting with an electrical problem trying to figure out what's going on with this thing. The gauge on the bike shows the voltage is low, but a voltmeter shows much higher (normal range) at idle and running.

The battery is over a year old and I topped it off pretty recently so think that may have something to do with it. Wasn't overfilled though.

I've added a hose to the overflow part yesterday, just need it to be a little longer though which I'll do this weekend.