Motorcycles BS Thread 2.0

I just sent my buddy the money for those supermoto wheels. He should get them Thursday. I just couldn't pass up the price. $800 with only 500 miles on the tires. Now I just need to plan a time to head back to my hometown and grab them. Wish I had a 300LS to mount them on

 

It’s snowing again today…

 

It's nice here

 

New Yuasa battery was here when I got home from work. Filling electrolyte now then ready to charge it up and install tomorrow morning.

 

old school lead acid huh? Didnt want to go with a noco LiFePo4 lithium batt?

 

AGM, I ride year round and from what I read the Lithium batteries still have issues at low temperature. Also no desire to have to buy new battery tender.

 

My experience with them and low temps: they can have issues, but it's fairly easy to overcome. It has to be under freezing for it to cause any issues, and even then if I turn the high beams on for maybe 30 seconds it'll be fine. Just enough to warm up the internals and lower the internal resistance. Since I started doing that I haven't had an angry battery in the cold in a while. The self discharge rate is extraordinarily low, so I don't put any of my li-ion/lifepo4 bikes on a tender over the winter anymore. I have chargers with li-ion specific profiles, but only use them to charge the batteries when I do something stupid like leave lights on or let my stator self implode.

 

FJR headlights don't come on until after bike is started.

 

Your headlight doesn’t come on if you turn the key on and do not start it?

 

Just using the starter will "warm up" the lithium.

 

Nope, neither do the headlights on my supertenere. Never had a problem starting the girl in the cold (probably seen down to 38deg). I like the lithium for higher cranking amps vs lead acid especially for the ST as it needs all the help it can get for starting.

 

Ok….. Now I gotta go check myself. Coulda sworn it did.

 

Just checked. The headlight on my turd will come on with the key turned to run and no start.

 

I've ridden to work some mornings with temps in the teens and bike sits outside in parking lot all day. I just don't want to have a situation where I might be the last to leave and bike doesn't want to start. Weight savings would be nice but reality is that I need to lose it before my bike does.

 

Powder coating day. Got started at about 9am getting the fatboy wheel blasted. Took about an hour or so. Cleaned it up real well then put it in the oven to off gas it. Got the powder gun all set up. Did card black which is a semi gloss. Same as I did the gixxer wheels. Came out pretty good. Got the bearings and races installed and packed with grease. Just waiting on new valve stems.
One of my best investments is the powder coating machine and blast cabinet. It’s paid for itself.

 

Yeah it depends on the bike.

My ole Honda 919, STOCK would turn the headlight on with the key BUT, when you pushed the starter it would disconnect the power wire that went to the other handlebar for the high / low beam switch to allow for more amps for cranking? (the 919 NEVER starved for cranking amps with its stock sized lead acid battery so not really sure why honda did this).

That "feature" was one of the VERY few faults of the 919, having all the power through a small wire and contact that would constantly get used inevitably led to corrosion and / poor connection which would heat up the contact and would unsolder the headlight power wire leaving you with no high or low beam... happened to me on a night ride of all things. That was a SKETCHY ride home. And with how small the main 12v lead was and how many spots it had for connections youd loose ~2v between the battery and the headlight. Made my own custom relay harness to direct power the headlight and would only loose ~ 0.25v with that setup which yielded in a MUCH brighter headlight.

 

DOOOD, that came out AMAZING! Never considered a home powder coating setup.

 

Cools. And good to know.

Come to think of it.. I think my old DRZ had a park mode on the ignition switch, that allowed the headlight to be off and either the tail light to be on or both the taillight and running lights while the bike was not running.

 

Damn good job

 

My F800GS doesn't either, UNLESS I turn on the high beams. I also have my accessories on a relay that comes on with ignitions, so I can use my aux lights for it, too.

It will, but if it's cold enough you can also drop the voltage low enough to lose all your dash memory and lose your clock and trip odometers haha

Yeah, really only ever had issues below freezing, and at this point I've figured out how long it needs to sit with lights on that it really isn't a problem any more. Above freezing no problems, just ignition on and hit the starter.

AGM makes sense for you, I get it, especially on a bike thats that big from the get-go. 10 lbs on your bike is going to be felt way less than 10 lbs on a dirt bike or something.