Hi all, I'm having some issues with the k bike. I'm charging up the battery after a winter in the shed, connect every thing up and she started on the first wind ( I love my  k bike) however the next day i have to charge the battery up again. took it out  of the shed for a short run round the yard and suddenly shes dead, no power and the battery seems to be flat again. but as i connect the charger to the battery in bike suddenly every thing comes back. so at first glance this is a bad earth. I have also put new brushes into and cleaned the starter motor so I don't think the issue is there. the earth strap to the seems to be fine so where else could i have earth problems?

look forward to the your suggestions 

George

It might be a good idea to connect a voltmetre to the battery and to check the voltage at the battery's terminals after a full charge, then charger off/key on, then immediately afterwards, what the voltage of the battery drops to when the starter begins its spin when you press 'go'. Perhaps it's simply a weak cell in the battery, making the batttery appear healthy after a charge but revealing the weakness when a load is placed on it.

you could try taking the kill switch (behind starter  button) apart and drowning it in contact cleaner

edit.. reread your post... wont be that if you had no accessory power

I would be testing the battery first of all it should read 12.6v after siting for 4 hours after the charger is removed and no less than 10.5 v when the starter is engaged. One other possibility is the ignition switch but my money is on the battery.

Here in the US you can take the battery to an auto parts store and they will load test it for free.

Your battery is probably shot.  If you let it sit in the shed all winter with anything less than a full charge on it it will self discharge and then the plates will sulfate, accelerating the self discharge. 

I have worked in a boatyard, and seen this problem every spring on dozens of improperly stored batteries.  You can sort of make it look good, but it will never be reliable again.

Moral of this story, always put a FULL charge on your battery when you put into storage, and trickle charge for a day once a month during storage.

What .75 says. If you store the bike for months at a time, one of these is a good idea:

http://www.oxford-shop.co.uk/cat267_1.htm

Hook it up and forget it. I've got one and it spends most of its time attached to the Bandit.

Dai wrote:What .75 says. If you store the bike for months at a time, one of these is a good idea:

http://www.oxford-shop.co.uk/cat267_1.htm

Hook it up and forget it. I've got one and it spends most of its time attached to the Bandit.

Why not just keep riding it........! That's what happens when you have a K....

Hi Guys thanks for the reply's. I had the battery tested and it tested ok but as was mentioned that's not under load.
so today I put the battery back in after a good 12-14  charge all looked good until I hit the stater then all life was gone again. 

one thing I forgot to mention was as I connect the positive terminal there is an audible click from the relay box under the tank. I'm fairly certain its the starter relay. now as I mentioned before ( I think) when I was having this problem I was using a test probe to try to track whats going on. when I touched the test probe to the input side of the starter relay  i get light on the probe as you would expect , but on the negative side suddenly i have power back. suspecting a earth problem and reading another post here about the stater motor brushes being an issue,  I changed them and the problem went away. but I still have a battery problem.

How was the test performed. As Duck mentioned it should be a Load Test. In the UK many Tyre/Battery outlets will load test your battery FOC, on the basis that you will probably buy a new battery from them.

Mike

Anything other than a load test on your battery is worthless.  The worst battery will show a full voltage after time on a charger.  The problem is that there is no real power being stored, and the voltage drops almost instantly when any current is removed from the battery.

Point-Seven-five wrote:Anything other than a load test on your battery is worthless.  The worst battery will show a full voltage after time on a charger.  The problem is that there is no real power being stored, and the voltage drops almost instantly when any current is removed from the battery.

Mostly true, but at the extreme worst, a battery I tested a couple of days ago showed 6.5V after a day and a half on a hefty charger. Funny, but it wouldn't deliver anything measurable on my load tester!



Bill

indian036 wrote:

Point-Seven-five wrote:Anything other than a load test on your battery is worthless.  The worst battery will show a full voltage after time on a charger.  The problem is that there is no real power being stored, and the voltage drops almost instantly when any current is removed from the battery.

Mostly true, but at the extreme worst, a battery I tested a couple of days ago showed 6.5V after a day and a half on a hefty charger. Funny, but it wouldn't deliver anything measurable on my load tester!



Bill

yep id say stuffed Bill

It'll make a good paperweight. Maybe one for holding down a workshop manual?