The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
Technical Discussion => BMW Technical Q&A, Primarily R65 => Topic started by: Patrick_Krivacka on April 15, 2010, 07:21:41 AM
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went out to start my bike after not having started it for a week and the battery was so weak it couldn't get it to run. Do i really need to put the bike on a tender if it's going to sit for more then a few days? Does this seem odd? The battery is new.
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It all depends on how you ride the bike .
The Bosch charging system on airhead BMW's, doesn't really start to charge the battery, until you get to around the 3500-4000 rpm area, so if you a lot of slow riding in traffic, get stopped by traffic lights, the battery will not get charged up .
What kind of battery do you have ?
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thanks for your quick reply Bob. I honestly don't know what kinda battery I have. I'll have to check when i get home. the PO put it in. There's a few stop lights on my commute, but there is long stretches of higher speeds as well. do you keep your bike on a tender? if so, what do you recommend? i love a kickstarter on a Motorcycle.
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I just got a battery tender about 2 months ago, up til then, didn't worry about the battery, never had a problem, until the relentless desert heat finally takes it's toll on the battery .
The '81 R65, only gets taken out on weekends, as I have collector insurance, so it technically can't be ridden to work, so it would sit for 5 days between being ridden .
I don't know about battery sources in your area, but three of us here, have installed a generic AGM type battery from Staab battery, located in the Chicago area .
Don't know about it's service life, but it was only $42 plus $16 shipping to Phoenix .
http://www.staabbattery.com/product/UB12220-V.html
Seeing as you've just gotten the bike, you may want to spend some time, and check the battery cables for condition, corrosion, security of hardware, electrolyte level and specific gravity of the electrolyte, if it's a serviceable type battery .
A good general looking over of the electrical connector condition may be a wise thing to do, when you get the time .
You never know what previous owners may have done to the bike .
After living in a desert for the last 17 years, I've forgotten about problems with corrosion on electrical connectors .
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A good battery should not discharge to the point where it will not start the engine after 1 week however it will discharge to some extent depending on type of battery, temperature and age. If you want a battery to last you have to keep it fully charged and that might mean leaving it on a battery tender or using an ordinary charger once per week particularly if it only gets used on short runs. This applies to a much lesser extent to AGM batteries which have a lower internal discharge rate. The highest internal discharge rates will occur with standard wet batteries and very high ambient temperatures.
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There's one battery cable connection, that gets overlooked .
It's a bit of an odd set-up .
The positive cable from the battery, goes to a threaded stud on the starter, the output from the diode board, also goes to this same stud .
It's hidden under the top engine cover .
Seeing as how these bikes are approaching 30 years old, hard to say what condition the connections are in .
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It seems odd to me that it would be low. I guess I'll look it over. I was planning on getting to that spline lube this weekend, so I hadn't been riding it much until I had time to get to it. After that I plan on riding it nearly everyday for my 32 mile round trip to and from work. Motorcycles are primarily transportation for me (not to say I don't love riding! )
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If it is a wet battery with caps to add distilled water, it might be low on electrolyte/fluid and needs topping off with distilled water.
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You might want to check the operation of your voltage regulator to see if you are getting a charging voltage to the battery even when the revs are up. It's a simple test (that I don't exactly remember right now, but I think you can find with a quick search of the forum site) that my regulator failed. My charging problems were fixed by a replacement regulator from Motorrad Elektrik.
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The test, is to connect a voltmeter to the battery terminals, start the engine, increase the rpms to around 4000, the battery voltage should be around the 14v dc area .
But this needs to be done on a fully charged battery .
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There's one battery cable connection, that gets overlooked .
It's a bit of an odd set-up .
The positive cable from the battery, goes to a threaded stud on the starter, the output from the diode board, also goes to this same stud .
It's hidden under the top engine cover .
Seeing as how these bikes are approaching 30 years old, hard to say what condition the connections are in .
+1 on that advice. You won't believe the crud that can get into that area. As long as you're doing a spline lube go ahead and pull the starter cover off and give everything a good cleaning. Your bike will thank you for it.
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came home from work. decided to try and start it to see what happened. cranked strong and started right up. it was a little chilly this morning (the condensation on my trucks window was icy). what do you folks make of this?
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Batteries don't like cold.
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are r65's know to be cold blooded? I had a ninja 500 that was ridiculously cold blooded, but ran great in warm weather.
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I'd still check the electrolyte level (if wet cell battery) AND go through and recheck all your electrical connections at the battery, the ground cable to the back of the transmission case, and the wires up to the starter relay and the starter. Possibly something is loose and/or corroded and wasn't making a good solid connection before (high resistance = less juice to spin starter) and sitting in a cooler environment mave have cause something to ever so slightly contract..
Oh, and if you don't have a multimeter, go to the hardware or electronic supply store and get one - even a "cheapie" for ~ $20 will work well enough for debugging these (and other) sorts of electrical gremlins.
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We were talking about this in Feburary:
http://www.bmwr65.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1263884723/42#42
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I rode the r65 to work today (I know, I need to do the spline lube. This weekend! ) it started fine and ran fine. just got back from the honda place to pick up some moly 60. we're in COMPLETE agreement about that being the grease of choice for spline lubes, right ? ; ) . Ran as it should then too. Along with the spline lube I'll check the battery level and all the suggested connections and let you know if I notice anything is out of the ordinary. thanks for all of your feedback.
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Take some emery paper to your electrical connectors and make them all shiny.
Apply grease on assembly - preferably dielectric.
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i started the tear down for the spline lube tonight. everything looks pretty good, but I'll certainly take your advice and make everything shiny then grease.
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are r65's know to be cold blooded?
a short story. . .
When I bought my '81 R65, the PO said it was "cold natured". When the bike fired, it ran only on the right jug until a bit of engine temperature built up and the left side would then join the circus. D'oh. At home, an inspection revealed the fuel reservoir for the enrichener circuit inside the left Bing was clogged with fuel sediment. A quick clean out of the passage and the "cold natured" R65 wasn't.
New primary battery cables were fabbed; electrical terminals were cleaned and massaged with a bit of dielectric grease; carb cables also tuned up.
Present start sequence for the formerly annoyingly "cold natured" R65: Fuel on; Enrichment Lever full on; Hands off twist grip; Ignition on; Push start button. Purrrrr.
As in life, it's most often the little things that, when overlooked, cause the most frustration. Take care of the little things. ;)
Monte
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R65's can 'act' cold blooded, like Monte said get the carbs cleaned out, and synchronized .
Another weak spot, is the ignition coil .
The original OEM coil, is gray and black, it has earned the nickname the 'crack-o-matic' coil, for the notoriety of developing cracks in the plastic case, usually will give you problems in damp or wet weather .
The upgraded OEM coil, red and black in color, isn't much of an improvement over the original, I only got 8 years out of mine, before it started giving me problems, which was hard cold starting .
I ride my R65 all year round here in Phoenix, and while our 'winter 'weather here, can hardly be called winter, as compared to other areas, my bike routinely sits outside at work for 18 hours in mid 30's F. temperatures, and it fires right up with no problems .
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...Another weak spot, is the ignition coil.
Oh, yes. Forgot about my cracked coil and those related start issues. Pull the tank, wipe off the road dust from the coil and inspect the coil thoroughly, including the ends. Tiny cracks. A magnifying glass and light can be a help.
The Dyna "brown" coil is a good replacement. Have them on both R65s. Rick Jones at Motorrad Elektrik can hook you up. May as well add fresh ignition wires and the nice NGK sparkplug caps, too. http://www.motoelekt.com/index.html
And do freshen the heat sink paste between the ICU and its aluminum heat sink body. Radio Shack has a small tube of the paste that will last you, oh, like, forever. A buck or so...
Monte
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speaking of coils- here's mine-at least the frankenization process on my r65 is both inside and out! and before you ask- yes that is fence hardware holding it on. problem? ; )
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We need a section on this site, called 'The Wall Of Shame', for pictures of previous owner(s) 'creative modifications' .
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Wall of shame??? that takes creative ingenuity to produce some of those modifications, and often more work than just buying the original part.
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I hear you darwin. I admire those folks like Bob who are horrified at such hack work. but if I'm honest, I have to admit that if I had a non-original coil laying around, and some fence hardware, and i really wanted to ride..... I also must confess that I won't be taking this off anytime soon. as ugly as it is, it seems pretty solid. Better still, it's keeping with the bikes mutt theme! : )
one thing though, there is a wire that's unpluged from somewhere that i can't find a home for. any chance this is my non functioning Tach? I'll post a picture on the other thread that I started on this subject.
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I hear you darwin. I admire those folks like Bob who are horrified at such hack work
It's probably my lengthy aviation maintenance career (34 years), that has me look at things a lot differently than most R65 owners .
My project LS, the ignition coil was 'cobbled' together, from bits and pieces, like what has been said, it took more time to put this together, than just go get an original part, and be done with it .
My LS's previous owner, wasn't keen on trouble shooting, the ignition quit on the bike, replaced the electronic 'bean can', then the ICU, before realizing that the original gray and black coil had quit .
But thanks to him, I have a spare 'bean can', and ICU .
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I guess being responsible for a plane running or not would give you a different perspective!! ; ) . like I said, I sincerely admire folks who do things the RIGHT way. It's a mind set that I'm trying desperately to cultivate. Doing something half a$$ on a motorcycle,while not as bad as a plane, would still be bad news.
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There's one battery cable connection, that gets overlooked .
It's a bit of an odd set-up .
The positive cable from the battery, goes to a threaded stud on the starter, the output from the diode board, also goes to this same stud .
It's hidden under the top engine cover .
Seeing as how these bikes are approaching 30 years old, hard to say what condition the connections are in .
I would say "It's first 30 years old". animo!
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Age is definitely a factor when working on these bikes .
Brittle wiring harness insulation, brittle plastic, rubber parts .
Corrosion, especially if the bike has been operated in a damp environment/coastal area, or someplace where salt is put on the roadways for de-icing purposes .
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I don't know much about most r65's but mine is a pain to start if the temperature drops below 60 degrees. Above 60 and it fires right up, first time. I guess it got used to this warm Tucson weather. :)
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My '81 started doing that about 5 years ago, wouldn't start below 55 F.
Culprit, faulty OEM second generation (red and black) ignition coil, the primary winding had .7 ohms, supposed to be 1.5 ohms .
Replaced it with a Dyna coil, hard starting problem solved .