Tuesday, July 20, 2010

thoughts...

So the GS's battery goes dead now whenever the bike sits. This started happening on the last day of the BBC rally after a rainstorm the night before. What could possibly be draining power when the ignition is off? I tested the ignition key switch and it's fine. The battery is good - sealed and brand new 3 months ago. Unless of course it got toasted by a bad R/R, which I am checking as soon as I get some time...but how would the R/R drain power with the ignition off?

Anyone have any ideas?

On the upside, I spoke with a guy from Leakproof today and he's sending a set of replacement fork seals for free...

In the meantime, all these gremlins with the old GS have got me thinking about how nice it would be to have a dependable modern bike to take on the longer rides. I think something like this would do:



Minus the huge mirrors, rear fender and stock exhaust, of course...

4 comments:

aaron said...

Those are great bikes. If I had one, I'd trade it to you for your GS.

If you have a drain on your battery, disconnect one of the leads and connect a little test light between it and the battery to see if there's a draw on it. If so, something is draining the battery. How far do you ride it? Have you checked the voltage with the bike running?

If you do end up having any kind of charging issue, I recommend replacing the reg/rec and stator at the same time with electrex brand components that solve the GS's specific charging system issue.

tom said...

check out this guy...

http://www.oregonmotorcycleparts.com/index.html

he builds reg recs & they are supposed to be real good. Pretty cheap to.

Ben said...

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm feeling a Sunday garage day coming on...

Ben said...

Bad battery, confirmed by the knuckle draggers at Batteries Plus. When asked why their 3-month old battery left me stranded in Richland Center, they didn't have a plausible response...

No SV for me (yet)