Kawasaki Concours Forum
The C-14, aka Kawasaki Concours-14, the new one :) => The Bike - C14/GTR 1400 => Topic started by: jscon2011 on May 25, 2018, 11:29:14 AM
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My bike is garage kept and has been taken for a spin every couple of weeks since November.
Last month, I left it on and then left the state for a month. Now I'm back and obviously, the battery is dead.
Problem: my emergency battery jumper wouldn't jump it so I hooked it up to my truck (didn't start truck). This wouldn't jump it either, so I started the truck. Finally the bike started but the FI error was flashing along with all the indicator lights, and power to the tach and speedometer was intermittent. It died when I removed cables. I kept it alive by revving the engine and locking the throttle, then removing the cables; I took it for a spin and could never see my speed or RPM's because they weren't being powered. Things continued to flash.
Then, it died, so I jumped again. No errors or flashing this time but it still dies as soon as I remove the jumper cables, even after running for 20 minutes.
Battery is 3 years old.
It almost made a knocking noise when trying to start, and even when running the first go around. The knocking was gone during the second time it ran, but was present when starting.
Anyone have a similar experience? Shop thinks starting the truck might have blown a fuse.
Thanks :)
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Sounds like it could be a bad ground. When you have the jumper cables connected, it's getting it's ground from the truck.
I would remove and clean your battery cables and the grounding point on the frame.
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And replace the battery.
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I agree. The battery is shot. You will need to get a new one. Fully drained batteries won’t last long. The acid erodes the neg contact. Decreased surface area of the negative pole decreases its ability to hold a charge.
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Ten4, I'll replace the batter and clean the components and post results.
Thanks 8)
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OMG I'm having flashbacks!!! Check the fuses too. Low voltage can do weird things... Just saying. ;)
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+1. I think the big ones are behind the battery..
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that battery is shot, take it out.... do NOT try jumping it again, replace the defective (now) battery, with a new one, which has been fully charged using a 2A charger prior, (just because its new, doesnt mean its fully charged...), and enjoy the bike.
further attempts to jump that battery may, or will, result in catastrophic damages..
when a battery which has been drained. and sitting is jumped, its likely that when the internal plates now in a bad state, will short... the batt may blow up...(seen it happen many times), or in the event of an even worse internal short, it will melt down the jumper cables... seen that happen also... yeah, that was a fun one for sure... as I had to run from my desk when i saw the involved cars burning... and grabbing 2 big fire extinguishers on my way to the lot, ended up spraying down both cars, as the cables melted the insulation off, and set the plastic grill work on both cars on fire.. as the cables were still attached and laying on the grills... the idiot that promoted the flame on, was still sitting in his car, engine revving, hood up, and on his cell phone... calling the fire department... I used his floor mat as an oven mitt, to disconnect the jumpers... when he started yelling at me about it, I blasted him good from the chest down with the dry chem extinguisher just for giggles...
anyway, replace the batt...
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Yeah, that sounds like classic battery failure, especially if you can keep the bike running with higher RPMs; that would be because the alternator is putting out more current at the higher speed.
Brian
My bike is garage kept and has been taken for a spin every couple of weeks since November.
Last month, I left it on and then left the state for a month. Now I'm back and obviously, the battery is dead.
Problem: my emergency battery jumper wouldn't jump it so I hooked it up to my truck (didn't start truck). This wouldn't jump it either, so I started the truck. Finally the bike started but the FI error was flashing along with all the indicator lights, and power to the tach and speedometer was intermittent. It died when I removed cables. I kept it alive by revving the engine and locking the throttle, then removing the cables; I took it for a spin and could never see my speed or RPM's because they weren't being powered. Things continued to flash.
Then, it died, so I jumped again. No errors or flashing this time but it still dies as soon as I remove the jumper cables, even after running for 20 minutes.
Battery is 3 years old.
It almost made a knocking noise when trying to start, and even when running the first go around. The knocking was gone during the second time it ran, but was present when starting.
Anyone have a similar experience? Shop thinks starting the truck might have blown a fuse.
Thanks :)
-
Yeah, that sounds like classic battery failure, especially if you can keep the bike running with higher RPMs; that would be because the alternator is putting out more current at the higher speed.
Brian
and with nowhere to bleed off the power, as the battery can't act as a buffer... bad results will occurr... no?
;)
I'm no genius, but some of these things kinda scare me...
..... so I hooked it up to my truck (didn't start truck). This wouldn't jump it either, so I started the truck. Finally the bike started but the FI error was flashing along with all the indicator lights, and power to the tach and speedometer was intermittent. It died when I removed cables. I kept it alive by revving the engine and locking the throttle, then removing the cables; ...
Then, it died, so I jumped again. No errors or flashing this time but it still dies as soon as I remove the jumper cables, even after running for 20 minutes.
Battery is 3 years old.
......
Anyone have a similar experience? Shop thinks starting the truck might have blown a fuse.
Thanks :)
pushing juice into a system like this, with 2 separate power generating devices (one at an extremely higher rate, the truck), for 20 minutes...can't be a good thing.
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Fingers crossed nothing bad has happened...yet
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You may well be right Rich but in my own experience, on both sides (user and designer), consumer electronics are just about bullet- proof. Typically, if one does the worst thing imaginable, say for example installing the batter backwards (electrically, not mechanically), there are shunts and diodes all over the place to protect all the major components from any damage. So as a general rule, I find almost all consumer- available electrics and electronics to be pretty robust, even in the face of determined..... silliness :-) Even w/out a working battery in the circuit, the voltage regulator will still be working, and besides all that, jumping any 12 volt vehicle from anther 12 volt vehicle, running or not, is fine in my opinion and IME. It is not about the current coming from the 'big truck' say, it is all about the voltage, and no matter the size of the vehicle, the voltage will always be limited in the primary source (big truck, backhoe, whatever).
That said, of course at some point, and I think this person is there, your advice to 'stop' is certainly sound and prudent. It seems to me that there is enough evidence pointing toward the battery, as several of us suspect, that it IS time to stop and just get a new battery. But then again, the OP said he was going to do that before I posted so I was just basically re- affirming your and others' opinions that it was the most likely thing.
As far as two or more devices, again, if all are voltage- limited, they can all be connected at the same time. The typical thing is a batter charger / staring jumper used to start a vehicle and leaving it attached and engaged while the vehicle's alternator kicks in which happens immediately when it is started. So the electrical system is being fed by two different sources but because both are voltage- limited, no problem. The same thing would go for three devices; as long as everything is limited to, say, ~15 volts, no additional current will flow into the motorcycle system (or lawn mower or anything else).
So generally, I am not really wary of mixing vehicle wiring systems to get one going, or charge the battery or anything else. In fact, if I do have a weak or dead battery and use my charger / starter booster to start that vehicle (from snowblower on up to backhoe), I usually leave the vehicle running with the battery charger connected to increase the current charging the battery for a few minutes because most or all vehicular charging systems just do not produce enough current at an idle.
Brian
and with nowhere to bleed off the power, as the battery can't act as a buffer... bad results will occurr... no?
;)
I'm no genius, but some of these things kinda scare me...
pushing juice into a system like this, with 2 separate power generating devices (one at an extremely higher rate, the truck), for 20 minutes...can't be a good thing.
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We do all seem to agree there's just no sense in risking damage to expensive electronics when the issue is obviously a bad battery that needs replaced!
IMO, the highest danger of damage isn't jumping with the truck, it's operating the bike with a potentially open circuit battery. If the battery can't serve as a big "capacitor", there can develop very high transient voltages caused by the coils and contacts in relays etc, which can overpower the built in protection circuits in things like the ECU.
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Well, that was kinda' the point of my last post- each vehicle is protected in its own right from over- voltage. So even with an open or shorted or half- way in-between battery, the system voltage supplied by any vehicle should not exceed a level that would cause any damage to any other vehicle. And the bikes' electrical system will merely piggy- back onto the jumping vehicle's electrical system if the batter is really an open- circuit or even missing entirely.
Again, not arguing with your idea of replacing the battery, merely addressing the fear being spread that jumping a vehicle from a much larger, or very different, or diesel vehicle, etc., etc. is 'bad' and should be avoided. But then again, I am the guy who dips his fob in water, soda, wine and scotch for chuckles so take what I am saying for what it is worth. :-)
Brian
We do all seem to agree there's just no sense in risking damage to expensive electronics when the issue is obviously a bad battery that needs replaced!
IMO, the highest danger of damage isn't jumping with the truck, it's operating the bike with a potentially open circuit battery. If the battery can't serve as a big "capacitor", there can develop very high transient voltages caused by the coils and contacts in relays etc, which can overpower the built in protection circuits in things like the ECU.
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just to clarify, and as I do agree with Brian on the volts thing, my major point is that with a battery failure there are 2 possabilities.. one, is the "open", or moreso to explain, a crack or fracture in the tie bars across the individual cells... this one is pretty harmless, and doesn't pose the danger warning.. the second one, and what I eluded to, is the propensity for the individual cell plates to swell, and short out internally, this has the effect of making a battery into a brick, as it is a dead short, between positive and negative, from the vehical used to jump it from... now, a truck, pumping a high amp charging flow ( as it is a truck, has a big battery of high amp service) into a mini battery like a bike has, with a total dead short internally, would not be a good thing... and running said bike, with said shorted cells, while its connected to the truck, for 20 minutes might prove an interesting Mr. Wizard experiment... just my silly thoughts...
we all agree. tho...
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I agree, I have no worry about jump starting with a car, truck, tractor or whatever when the battery in the bike is relatively good. As long as it's a 12V system. Definitely a case where size doesn't matter!!
When the battery is known to be bad as all things indicate this one is, I agree with MOB, no good can come from continuing without replacing the battery.
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it is really funny in retrospect, the story i mentioned about the car fire... as I worked as an engineer for a company that manufactured power quality and distribution equipment...
one of the most telltale things everyone there knows, is when a wire gets hot... something needs attention.. the fellow y
who was jumping the car tried to do the jump with his car idling, and he said "it tried to stall out...", so he told the woman with the bad battery, to sit in his car, and keep the rpm's up, while he attached the cables to her badly internally shorted batt...
he told me when I questioned him, that it did spark when he made the connections, but "figured" it was all normal, as he "knew how to do this, and insure the polarity was correct..."
when I asked him if the wires started to get hot..which I always check during any jump start, he said he never paid any attention.. jumped in his car, and revved the thing till the insulation melted off the jumpers, and started burning and arcing....
this guy was in our sales department... and responsible for selling equipment rated up thru 4000 amps... sweet... :rotflmao: :chugbeer: :chugbeer: :1DeadBanana
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shocking...
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I removed the bad battery and swapped it out for a new one at the shop. I installed the new one and took the bike in for her 4k inspection; everything was okay.
As has been mentioned, I too have used a running cage to jump a good battery in the past, but it's usually not necessary. This battery was 3 years old and had been left on for ~30 days. I'd never had a battery that shot before. Thanks for the input and advice! I wasn't fully aware of the dangers of working with a battery in this condition.
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This battery was 3 years old and had been left on for ~30 days. I'd never had a battery that shot before. Thanks for the input and advice! I wasn't fully aware of the dangers of working with a battery in this condition.
Yeah, lead-acid batteries absolutely HATE being left being in a discharged state. I have ruined more than one due to that. I am glad all is OK now!
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+1. I think the big ones are behind the battery..
+1, sounds like the battery to me.
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Just in case some of you have forgotten. When a battery has had enough and goes completely south...
http://www.zggtr.org/index.php?topic=22892.0 (http://www.zggtr.org/index.php?topic=22892.0)
Lots of lessons learned, all painfully expensive.