Saturday, December 29, 2012

Helen's VFR - New Battery

Helen got a new battery from Rochdale Honda yesterday. We decided to get the proper Yuasa battery that Honda fit, as the V4 can be quite demanding on batteries.

Took all of about 5 minutes to change the batteries over, Honda have made it very easy with its easy access location under the seat. Bike started eventually, it did need a good bit of throttle to keep the revs up until the automatic choke kicked in. I’ll have to remember to keep the bikes batteries tickle charged over the winter period on some sort of rotation system.

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Sunday, December 23, 2012

Quick Blast on BMW

Went out for a quick blast on the BMW today just to keep the cobwebs at bay. Helen was also going to come out but here bike wouldn’t start, flat battery. I put her bike on charge and then went out on my own.

I just headed out over to Rishworth Moor to do a few laps of our local loop. But the roads where quite pot holed in places and there was still some nasty damp patches about. So I just did one lap of the loop and headed back home. I had intended to take the ZX-9R out as well, but the last thing that needs is to get wet.

I arrived home and we tried to start Helen’s bike again, but it was clear that the battery was no good. I carried out some more tests on it just to check it wasn’t a regulator/rectifier problem (come problem on these), but the battery was going down to about 5V when trying to turn the engine over, so clearly naked.

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