Clock / Trip resetting when starting

Hi Gofaster

I am sorry I have only just spotted this thread, and can see you are starting to get buried in an avalanche of advice, so I am not sure whether my 2p will help or not, but here goes.

First things first - motorbike batteries do not last forever, and the symptoms you describe - trip and clock resetting - indicate the battery has a low charge. It may be simply due to old age - in which case replacing it should be all that is needed - or it could be down to charging problems - which these bikes have quite a history of.

So if I was in your shoes, I would start by the obvious - remove the battery from the bike and charge it overnight. If at all possible use a quality digital motorbike battery charger (optimate) - these use electrical witchcraft to try and get the attached battery up to full health and some will even diagnose battery faults. In the morning disconnect the battery charger and then use a multimeter to measure the standing volts.

Checking out the battery is the vital first step. If you have no idea how old the battery is, then this may help you work out whether its time to replace the battery.

A healthy charged battery without any load will put out around 12.7-13.2 volts. Numbers will drift down as the battery ages. However if you also have any constant drains on your bike - like an alarm system to contend with, I would consider fitting a replacement once the standing volts regularly hit 12.8.

If the standing volts seem fine, then skip the next bit, but if the numbers seem borderline, then you may want to carry out a fuller assessment of your battery health as follows -


To test battery: (original Yuasa type) - remove from bike and trickle charge overnight with a decent Optimate type digital charger until it is fully charged. The digital chargers won't over charge/cook the battery. So next morning ...

- End of charge volts should be 12.7-13.2V
- Connect a load to the battery (any old 21W indicator bulb should provide enough drain)
- Check voltage every 30mins or so and see how long it takes for the battery volts to drop to 12.3V
- Less than half hour = Totally dead battery - bin it!
- About one hour = Virtually dead battery - needing replacement now!
- More than one hour 30 = battery is still serviceable - but will need replacing soon
- More than two hours = Good battery.


Assuming the battery is considered good or serviceable - put it back on the charger and next morning hook it up to the bike so we can check the health of the stator and RR, by monitoring the volts at the battery terminals. Start the bike and wait until it comes off "fast idle mode" - you will hear the revs drop. Now we need to note the volts at the terminals first with the engine running at normal idle and then at 5,000 rpm whilst the bike is relatively cold, and then we repeat the measurements after you have taken the bike out for a 30+ minute ride by which time the bike and everything electrical is good and hot. (Sometimes the stator will work fine when cold, but as it heats up the insulation in the stator windings can fail, and start to drain the battery, not charge it.)

Normally a healthy stator and RR should be delivering 13 - 14 volts+ at idle and between 14 and 15 volts above 2,000 rpm. It should never exceed 15.5 volts or things like headlight bulbs will blow. (Lights on/lights off should make no more than about 0.5V difference to those numbers.)

Anyway if any of the measurements seem off - then get reading the following link.
(OK its written for the 5th gen VFRs so items will look different/be in different locations, but the process of checking your charging system will be similar and I know from personal experience both the RR and later the stator on my 2007 died - in both cases after very long hot runs.).

http://vfrworld.com/forums/5th-gener...-failures.html


A couple of other suggestions - it will help people on here, if you update your forum profile - "my profile" tab at the top of the page, to include your bike year/specs and a rough location city/state is fine. That way if you need help with a problem - you may find someone nearby is willing to swing by and offer advice in exchange for some beer tokens.

I also suggest you check with a Honda dealer to see if your bike was covered by (or overlooked for) a wiring upgrade recall, which I think applied to many early vtec models sold in North America.

I hope that helps.. Take care and let us know how you get on.





SkiMad

 

Michael Moore lied to me!

Occam's razor tells me that I should determine it's not just a weak battery or dirty terminals before I go through all of that. We all know there is a little drag when the bike is in gear, so it makes perfect sense that if the battery is a little weak, it don't always have the power to start the bike with that added resistance.

 

True about the little drag, the clutch when pulled it resolves that, putting it in neutral still keeps most tranny drag there.

I believe we covered discharged battery and dirty connections at said battery. We all agree that weak battery is first. But that can simply be from age, not being charged in a while, etc. If the bike starts fine when in neutral then the battery is providing the current, the clock needs the voltage to drop below 6v to reset. So that would be a really bad battery, the bike should not start at that point, or most likely a connection issue.

Lead acid batteries are nominally 2.2v per cell and 6 cells make a 12v battery so fresh charge will be about 13.4v and after an hour it should be about 12.6 and will drop to about 12.2 after some time. How long of time determinds how good the battery really is.

get a digital charger (these are multi stage chargers sold under a different name) they are the best way to charge a battery and wont kill the battery.

But enough education, start by charging the battery. Get another battery to test your bikes charging system. Make sure its a known good one and see if the charge voltage is over 13.2v it should never see 15v as thats a very dead battery and your charging system is working way to hard. A good range is 13.2 at or just off idle, 13.8 to 14.8 at 5000rpm. And no voltage rise as the engine goes up in rpm. The voltage will fall as the bike returns to idle.
if that isnt what happens with a known good battery then the charging system has an issue.
Be on the look out for bad connections, they are part of the game with any bike.

Our advice is just that, advice. Take it or leave it.

 

Don't know how they do things in Saskabush but I never paid a damned thing for a docs visit in ManitscoldItoldya. Not up front anyways. Of course we paid for it in our taxes.

 

Have bc medi-care fuck up the transfer to manitoba and manitoba refuse to give you medicare. Two years to figure out what happened and get it fixed. Two years of having to pay the bills that followed. Good news it I got some of it back but not everything.

Now saskatchewan, copy your old card, fill out the form and fax both to this number, welcome to sask!