sign of bad news??

[BeDaring08]

Some times when i start up my bike my gauges will reset them selfs The bike will act like it has no power, then is starts right up and drives with out a issue. I had the battery tested and they said it was good. I took the bike to harley, the buell guy looked at it, stuck a volt meter to the battery and hit the starter. The battery dropped to below 5 volts but it only did it once out of a maybe 5 tries. When i went back to the batteries plus were i bought the battery from a few months ago, they did the same and it didnt happen for them. So my ? is my battery bad or is my stater drawing to many amps. If so how do i check that, when it doesnt happen all the time. Im confused on what my next step should be. Oh ya its a 04 xb12r with 7000 or so miles.

 

[TooFst]

I'm on my 3rd batt. Every time same thing happens, the battery is good for about 2 weeks. The I go to start and there's almost a turn over, half second delay then it cranks and fires. My theory is the fan running after the bike is off, then it sits with a low charge and just "kills" the battery over time.

 

[BeDaring08]

hmm... Lets hope we can get this figured out. Batteries aren't cheap

 

[crxtasy169]

Sounds like a bad stator or regulator/rectifier, it shouldn't drop that much from the fan running after the bikes shut off!
I have also heard of a bad connector on some buells,XB's, in the harness to the charging system that arcs over to the frame and causes batteries to die and stators to blow. I beleive it was under the seat so for safety sakes take off the seat, start the bike and make sure the harness isn't arching to the frame.

 

[BeDaring08]

http://www.buellxb.com/Buell-XB-For...nswers/Voltage-Regulator-Connector-Pre-08-XBs

Im on vaca and havnt had time to work on my bike yet but i found this thread and im going to give that a try. Its talking about the number 77 pin going bad on the earlier buells and that there is a updated plug that fixs the problem. I hope its the plug bcs thats a simple cheap fix, regulator going out is costly

 

[Stevenc150]

Sounds like you've got a "leak" somewhere, a wire worn through insulation and shorting to frame or something. Here's a good procedure to narrow it down to an "area":

- Pull the negative terminal cable off of the battery.
- Set a multimeter to mA.
- Attach the neg. cable to one lead and touch the neg. terminal on the battery itself.
- If it reads 0, you don't have a short.
- If it's anything but 0 then you have a short somewhere. Now start pulling fuses from the block one at a time until the needle drops to 0. That'll narrow it down.

 

[07Bolt]

yeah its prob the short to ground somewhere; if it were the stator/reg it would run until it couldnt run anymore.

 

[BeDaring08]

I will have to check out that out when i get home on the 3rd. Ill let you guys know. Thanks for the help

 

[onelogue]

No doubt its your ground wire! My bike was having the same problem (hesitation when i push the starter and gauges resestting) but once i cleaned and tighted my ground connection to the frame the bike starts like brand new now.

Give it a try and let us know.

 

[BRatigan]

I have the problem when I let my bike sit for a week.
Keep your battery charged when not in use, use a trickle or battery tender, etc. When my battery is fully charged I have no problem. When its down just a little it will hesitate then fire up.

BR