On Mon, 19 Dec 2016 17:18:07 -0800 (PST), Its Me wrote:

On Monday, December 19, 2016 at 3:34:36 PM UTC-5, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 12/19/2016 1:09 PM, Poco Loco wrote:
On Sun, 18 Dec 2016 17:10:40 -0800 (PST), Tim wrote:

So jsut for the fun of it today I went to the warehouse and looked at the two sleeping motorcycles. They're not in a heated room and I havent pulled thee batteries ... yet. Maintenance willl happen before spring. Changing oils on the Gold Wing is a snap. The Guzzi 1100 is a bit different. it's a pain. a REAL pain to change the oil. but anyhow....

So the bikes are out of the wind and it was a little warmer in their parking spot than outside and I thought. hmmm lets see what happens. I hit the key on the Wing and all lit up. I turned the choke on and it grunted a couple times on a compression and locked.

I then went to the Guzzi and with no choke it made a couple snerks and fired right off. I lightly rapped the throttle a couple times and it settles right into idle.

If Id been dressed better I would have taken it around the block.

Odd thing is, that both bikes are 1100's, the wing is a 4 cyl and the Goose is a V-twin. a two of the same displacement is harder to roll over than a four which tells me the battery inn the wing is headed south. I thought that was the case this fall before it turned cold. The battery is a year and a half old, and IMO isn't much especially when you pay a premium for a wet cell. But n that bike I may go lithium. a lot of money but it will be the end of dead batteries.

Now the Guzzi? I installed the finest lawn tractor battery that Walmart had to offer. a whole 29 bucks worth. And it rolled and started the bike like brand new at approx +20 degrees f.

BTW right before I left, I hit the wings starter button one more time. Same grunt, same disappointment. Oh well. March isn't that far away. but Ill pull the battery so it doesn't freeze and throw acid. but this case tells that what costs more isn't always better...



I would first invest in a Battery Tender Junior and give it a shot. You can always claim it as a
business expense and save a bit.


When I had motorcycles I discovered that often the 3 cycle "smart"
charger I had would not work on a badly depleted battery. The smart
charger would default to "off" and report a bad battery during the
initial charge cycle. This happened several times on one of the
batteries I had and I decided to try an old fashioned "dumb" charger on
it. It worked fine and after about half and hour I switched back to the
smart charger which then went through it's charge, absorption and
maintain phases perfectly. That battery was only a year old and, after
the charge, performed fine for another season.

That's one issue even the new lithium batteries still have. If you have a constant drain or otherwise run them completely down, they don't like it. They need to be maintained. The special lithium chargers can sometimes bring them back depending on how bad the event was. Their biggest advantage at this time seems to be weight and longevity, but with a price $$.

Severely discharged lithium polymer (LiPo) batteries can sometimes be started on the charging
process by changing the charger setting to NiMh or NiCad. However, the process should be monitored
very carefully with frequent checks for battery overheating. This applies to the batteries used in
RC aircraft, for example, so I'm not sure if it would work with a motorcycle sized battery. I'd
guess the principles would be the same.