Perhaps someone with a few more grey cells than I can explain this about my ‘old’ battery.
As I have said the battery it somewhat old (don’t know how much) and in the past has been showing something like 12.5ish when left for a week and reducing until its about 12.3 and won’t start the bike without pressing the button a number of times (I assume to get the pistons over TDC).
I charged it for two days with a reducing type meter and then took it for a ride twice in a week (charging at about 14.2ish) then on a low charge’ maintenance’ meter.
Took it off charge about 2.5/3 week ago and it was reading about 13.8 and its only dropped to 13.4 since then - but will not start the bike even though the lights hardly dim when trying to start and then the fuse blew!
Any suggestions?
I had a very similar failure of a 5 year old battery recently - seemingly enough volts, but no amps. The previous day I had done about 200 miles with no issues. Been messing about with cars and bikes for 35+ years and never seen it before!
I thought it was the starter at first but couldn’t find anything wrong with that. But might be worth checking if you can jump start from something else, or also try bridging across the starter terminals in case the relay has failed.
A quick check if the battery is up for the job is to short an open end spanner across the 2 big terminals on the end of the solenoid, that should spin the starter without engaging it. If that works, try shorting a screwdriver or short bit of wire from the top bolt connection on the solenoid to the smaller spade connection on top of the solenoid, that should spin the starter and engage it.
Going through those checks will eliminate all the bike wiring and rule out any dodgy connections, relays etc. If that won’t turn the engine over, then it’s time for a new battery.
Tell us what happens when you do that.
I may not have explained myself very well.
In the first part I was wondering how an old’ish lead/acid battery can show something like 13.4 - 13.6 when its ‘rested’. I would usually expect 12.8ish at the very best (with a new lead/acid battery)! It’s obviously higher when I charge it with a charger or after a run (about 14ish) but I would have thought it should run back to the 12.8 after ‘resting’ for 24hrs or so but this one has stayed at 13.2 to 13.5 ish even after about 3 weeks now.
The bit about not starting is prob. me. If the battery is run down after a few weeks it clearly will not start the bike but I do not have a problem with this. What I was asking is this, turn the key on and put the run switch to ‘on’ and press the starter - bike starts. Turn ‘off’ the run switch and back ‘on’ straight away everything lights up as you would expect but pressing the starter button does not start the bike. Do the same thing but when turning ‘on’ rather than immediatly I wait a few seconds and it will start. Does the starting logic circuits need a few seconds to reset themselves?
It is possibly (probably) a dodgy starter relay that is causing your problems, running through the tests mentioned above will rule out the relay and any dodgy connections in the bikes wiring. It is effectively hot wiring the starter motor to see if the battery is up to the job of turning the engine over.
The dodgy starter relay problem has plaqued Guzzi’s for years, look up Click No Crank and you will find many comments.
Ok, I’ve checked both and they are ok.
I think the problem, if it can be called that, is with the multimeter I was using. I dragged my old faithful Draper out of the back of the garage and found that the ‘cheap’ one I was using is now reading some 1.1v high (for some reason) so when I took a reading I thought the battery was fully charged - in this case 13.4ish at rest - but in reality it was in fact 12.3ish.
Having taken the meter appart and ‘wiggled’ the internal bits about (what I do when I don’t know what i’m doing) and it now reads almost the same as the Draper.
Prob could do with a new battery but for the time being I will keep it on a maintenance charge when I’m not using it.
Thanks for the help.
If the tests worked and the starter spn over OK by shorting it out, you almost certainly need to do the relay mod. The wiring feeding power into the starter relay goes up through various connectors and the ignition swith before getting to the relay. By the time it’s done all that, its getting pretty tired and doesn’t have the power to activate the solenoid. I am not familiar with the Nevada wiring, but you need to add a feed from the battery, through an in line fuse and connect it direct into the relay.
Hopefully someone on here will be able to point you in the direction of which terminal to connect it into.