It's ALIVE!

My experiance with Del chokes is switch the chokes off straight after it starts,mine would foul a plug if the choke stayed on after it started
 
Correct, but best is to actually ride off after starting, shutting choke after the first 100 meters or so. Without choke, it might run rough in idle...
 
Vince said:
My experiance with Del chokes is switch the chokes off straight after it starts,mine would foul a plug if the choke stayed on after it started
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Crikey! Yours must be running richer than mine.
I cannot get away without the choke until I am a good mile or so down the road, otherwise she slowly dies if ticking over.
 
SimonR501 said:
Crikey! Yours must be running richer than mine.
I cannot get away without the choke until I am a good mile or so down the road, otherwise she slowly dies if ticking over.
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Ditto. Same story on the Jota, Ducati, Benelli and Guzzi. No way any of them will warm up without choke on for a few minutes. Maybe it's the cool weather in Tassie.
 
Don't know about the SFC, but my R90S's Dels need full choke to start, idle long enough to hear the engine loading up and a bit of smoke out the rear, then full off choke and idle for 5-10 minutes before the bike will take a load under throttle.  Quite the process.  Once warmed, all is good.  It's the reason a lot of R90S's have Mikunis. :)
 
My 81 Le Mans is hopeless for about 10 minutes, even in warm weather. Needs full choke to start, mind you it is really choke on or off as there is no in between, and then will idle for a while before dieing. Then it tries to die every time you give it some throttle. Very bloody inconvenient taking off from lights. When it finally warms up she runs perfect.

Mikuni conversion will be coming as soon as I can afford it.
 
sound as though you had had what is called "cold fouling" and what some are talking about above, "cold fouling" is a modern phenomena, due to the fuel we now have to suffer, if you start your bike, but do not fully warm the whole thing through,( and riding off is the best ploy as Lowther states), then you can get cold fowling, it can ruin the plugs, but not always, the fuel leaves a residue on the plugs electrodes which cannot be seen with the naked eye, and is difficult to eradicate, new plugs does it, it wont occur if you do run the motor up to full temperature (almost) every time.
CLEM
 
Clem,John Wilson used to call that plug posioning.Years ago if you fouled a plug a hard run would usualy burn it clean.Doesnt happen now,if your lucky pulling it for a solid clean does it,sometimes not even that.
 
I've occasionally resurrected fouled plugs by taking them out and burning the crap off them with a butane torch. If I'm a long way from home (eg: interstate trips) I carry a little butane torch that has a soldering iron attachment. I've had to use it on the side of the road on several occasions, not always on my own bike.
 
So, you guys were right on target, again, of course.  Tried starting with the 'fully charged' PC680.  No go.  Put a voltmeter on the battery and tried again while watching the voltage.  Went down to 9-10v.  Jumped the beast and she started right up.  Little choke to start, then no choke and nice easy idle at 1000 rpms.  Died cuz I forgot to turn on the fuel.  Duh. 

Question is:  why did a brand new PC680 get killed?  What battery should I try next?

 
 
3 things I can think of,dud from the start,over charging,thats over 14 volts with the bike at 3k or so or sitting around for to long and discharging.For some reason there seems to be lots of expensive battery's not lasting long these days.
 
Vince said:
3 things I can think of,dud from the start,over charging,thats over 14 volts with the bike at 3k or so or sitting around for to long and discharging.For some reason there seems to be lots of expensive battery's not lasting long these days.
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Battery did sit around awhile before I charged it again and tried to start the bike this week.  Question, then, is: get another PC680 or try something else?

 
Rockitdoc said:
Question is:  why did a brand new PC680 get killed?  What battery should I try next?
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Hey Doc, maybe it was not charged correctly somewhere along the line?

This is from the Odyssey website:
To recharge your Odyssey PC680 correctly you will need a charger with a range of 14.1v to 14.7v you should not exceed 15v at any time as this will cause the valves to open and force the hydrogen, oxygen and water from inside the battery.

Constant voltage charging or brute force charging is not recommended.

It also says on the Odyssey site that these batteries are $249 AUD. That seems a bit mental to me. Last battery I bought was a Century sealed lead acid battery from the local Autoparts store, they sold it as a ride on mower battery. It was a few years ago, but I think it was about $120.00. (It just fit into the battery space on the RGS).

I was told only to trickle charge a sealed lead acid battery. If I haven't ridden the bike for a few weeks, I'll put it on a 300mA 12V DC charger for about 48 hours. It is the first sealed battery I have had. I'll be replacing it, when the time comes, with the same, or something similar.
 
Seems that most of the battery problems reported on this site pertain to Odyssey batteries. I had one a few years ago that that lasted a disappointingly short time (about a year). I now call them Oddity batteries because they're so bloody fussy about their cherge cycle. I dunno why they're regarted as a top of the line battery.

Odyssey makes reasonably good deep cycle batteries for boats and motor homes, so I wonder whether they're applying deep cycle technology to their motorcycle batteries (as their charging regime would seem to indicate) which is not what a motorcycle needs. I'd never buy another one of their bike batteries.

I've found Motobatt or Deka to be as good as any and better than most. They're a lot cheaper than Oddity, less pernickety about their charging, and last longer.

I bought a Litium battery a while back. Very small and light with plenty of cranking grunt, but I havent had it long enough to form an opinion on its longevity.
 
I have an Odyssey in the SFC. Been there for about 8 years. Charged with an ordinary charger once a year before starting bike.
Paul
 
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