900F Electrical and Dead Battery

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2022 7:04 pm

Took a ride a couple weeks ago. Everything was running great.

Stopped for gas and my starter wouldn't turn at all. Got pushed
for a jump start which happened right away. About 3 miles down the
road and 60 miles from home the bike started missing bad and died?

Took the battery out of the bike and went home to get the trailer.

Charged the battery..it was a little more than halfway dead.

Put the battery back in the bike and it immediately started. I decided
to load the bike in the trailer rather than risk it dying again on a 60 mile ride.

Got home and checked my rotor. It was a rebuilt Electrosport that was about 14 years old.
It registered at 4.9 Ohms so I figured it was going caput.

I had this newly rebuilt rotor from Jim Dent. A Yamaha XJ 650.
It reads perfect at 4.1 Ohms.

These rotors are nice and mount up exactly on the Honda
crankshaft. They are lighter weight (not as light as 1100F)
and cheap used on Ebay.

I installed the rotor and started the bike with the battery fully charged.
It was only reading at 12.5 volts. So something else was wrong.

Headless was a big help with electrical diagnosis and having me test
various things. Stator tested good, regulator tested good, new rebuilt rotor.

I also went through ground connections and electrical connections. Nothing
corroded, some were a little dirty is all. Cleaned up and new dielectric grease.

Sillygoose said my battery was bad. You know, the last thing you want to do
is drive to Autozone or Oreilly for a free battery test because it seems like a
PITA.

Another motorcycle friend locally who is a whiz with electric said "buy a new
regulator." Said he was chasing the same issue as me and his regulator tested
perfect.

I ordered one from Ricks. It was at my door in 3 days.

In the meantime I got my Gel Battery checked and yes,
Sillygoose was right! It is supposed to have 190CCA and it was at 150CCA.
Was that the problem? Well in a way yes...

I ordered the same Gel battery. In retrospect I wish I would have
bought an Anti Gravity since that is what's going in the build bike.
Problem is I already purchased the regulator and for lithium based
battery you need a different regulator with a lower cutoff charge.

This Gel battery worked for a long time though so the same thing
should be good.

With everything installed here is the new charge rate at 3000 RPM.

I have put a couple hundred miles on the new setup now and still
charging perfect.

The lesson learned and from what I can tell, the battery started to go
and stressed out the charging system wrecking my regulator..possibly
my rotor but not convinced it was really bad yet? 4.9 Ohms is outside of the
'good' readings in the manual.

Since the Yamaha rotor was going to be used for my build I had to buy another
on Ebay and have Jim Dent do it again.

If anyone is interested the rotor used was 19.00 on Ebay. Jims charge is 105.00 bucks to
do a rewind and he cleans it up all brand new. Takes about 2 weeks.

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2022 6:32 am

If you have the stock OEM ignitor boxes and the plastic
melts out them, Mike Nixon told me it's from trying to start
the bike with a very low battery that overheats the boxes

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:59 pm

Had this same thing happen to me several weeks ago. I've been trying to work it out but having issues. 5 year old Ricks rotor went out and also OE stator shorted. Looks like the solder at both coil connections flew off and got chewed up between rotor and stator. I have replaced the 6 year old battery with a Motobatt 16.5ah, 210 CCA model, have new Electrosport RR and stator. Bought a rotor thru eBay with PartsGiant.com that was supposed to be an Electrosport unit but boxed in Tucker Rocky packaging? Right out of box it reads 5.7 ohms at room temp. New stator reads all yellows open to ground but all yellow to yellow values are about .7 ohms on 2 different meters.

Been trying to contact Jim through PM here and his email listed a XS650.com about a month ago and again yesterday.

Does anyone have better info how to reach him? I still have the OEM rotor I would like rewound to the optimum resistance value. After reading his rotor rewinding post at XS650 he puts great care into this and looks like his work will be reliable for a very long time.

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2022 8:36 pm

airframedent@gmail.com

Red CB1100F Joined: Jul 19, 2010 Posts: 5899 Location: Ct

As you know i went through this last fall. New battery, Ricks rotor, Ricks stator, rectifier. Ran great for a few months. Bike broke up and died couple months back. Nothing when hit the starter. Went and bought a ZRX 1100 and pushed the goddam CB to the front of the garage where it sits now. I’ll dig into it this winter Razz

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2022 12:14 am

If you had absolutely nothing I would check the main fuse under the left side cover. Could be that simple

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2022 3:06 am

Hondo57 wrote:

If you had absolutely nothing I would check the main fuse under the left side cover. Could be that simple

main fuse is fine.

That is the email I have tried but no reply.

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2022 11:48 am

My fuse comment was for ctluba.
I just got my second rotor back from Jim and sent him a thankyou. He replied and that was Aug. 1st. Maybe he took a vacation? He usually responds within a few hours.

Red CB1100F Joined: Jul 19, 2010 Posts: 5899 Location: Ct

I did check the main fuse, intact. I’m just not motivated to dig in again at this time. I’m thinking about having a “fix Steve’s bike party” and all you guys can come over and fix it and I’ll give you 1/2 beer each 🤷‍♂️ Laughing

Have a great weekend guys Cool

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:27 pm

Hondo57 wrote:

My fuse comment was for ctluba.
I just got my second rotor back from Jim and sent him a thankyou. He replied and that was Aug. 1st. Maybe he took a vacation? He usually responds within a few hours.

I emailed on July 4 and no reply.

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2022 5:41 pm

I emailed Jim and told him to check his spam file.
If he cant find it I said to let me know. I'll get back with you.

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2022 12:20 am

Hondo57 wrote:

I emailed Jim and told him to check his spam file.
If he cant find it I said to let me know. I'll get back with you.

I appreciate the help Greg, thank you very much!!

I heard back from Jim and that's exactly where he said my emails ended up.

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2022 1:17 am

When the charging rotor fails the resistance usually goes low (the coated insulation on the windings break down from heat) once that happens winding #1 makes contact with winding # 364 since the overlap inside.

It was probably just a bad battery. I had an AGM in my Blue 1100 and the charging voltage started getting higher (I have a voltmeter) shortly after that the battery wouldn't start the bike. It was just a bad battery it was 5-6 years old although my batteries go in the basement every winter and I rotate the tender.

These new batteries do not fail the same way the old liquid filled ones do.

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2022 2:52 am

bobcat7 wrote:

If you have the stock OEM ignitor boxes and the plastic
melts out them, Mike Nixon told me it's from trying to start
the bike with a very low battery that overheats the boxes

Those boxes, the early ones, will 'melt out' while sitting on a shelf - over the winter. Heat is not required. In any case, they still work, even with the potting compound drained out.