Replaced engine finally goes down the road.

Since the eclipse of the sun I have not had a bike to ride. My engine gave up the ghost a day or so after the eclipse. I bought a used engine (83 Aspencade w/ 18k miles) and put it in my 83 interstate. Kept finding gremlins trying to get the bike to run.

It had a knock. Took belts off and loosened up the springs on the lifters. Made sure it was timed and valves set. NO knock.

Went to go for a test ride and put it in gear to take off. No movement at all. Went thru all the gears but no go. You have to put the circlip in the middle of the universal joint.

Went for a 30 mile ride today. FINALLY

The engine runs so smooth. At a stop light I can not hear the engine running.
When I gunned it to go from 20 to 70mph it sounds like a Harley. Same pipes I have always had on this bike.

While cruising at 60 mph the voltmeter shows the stator has 13.5 When I turned the heated jacket and gloves I was getting 12.4

When in 3rd gear the purple overdrive light comes on. Goes off in 4th and 5th gear.

I plan to put a new fuse box (84 1200 box) to replace the glass fuses and clean up the ends of old wires. Hope this helps the voltmeter.

And lastly to put a c5 on this bike.

I am happy now that I have a running bike. Sad part is it is time for winter to hit here.

Great to hear the voltage doesn’t sound that though hope it’s nothing big ...

The last time that I changed a motor, of course, I had to put in the circlip. I got a finger caught in that space and it took me at least 10 minutes to free it. I had started to panic at one point and I was glad that my son was around to help me. Or call the fire department.

Glad your bike is running and the motor seems to be ok. What a nice, hell it's a great, milestone.

Sounds like someone may have been inside the front cover (water pump perhaps?) and didn't get the neutral switch installed properly

[url=https://www.classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=197739#p197739:wu59j0l0 said:

wilcoy02 » Today, 2:19 pm[/url]":wu59j0l0]
While cruising at 60 mph the voltmeter shows the stator has 13.5 When I turned the heated jacket and gloves I was getting 12.4

I plan to put a new fuse box (84 1200 box) to replace the glass fuses and clean up the ends of old wires. Hope this helps the voltmeter.

Click to expand...

Wilcoy - do you have the alt mod on this bike?

Perseverance Wes... that's the name of the game. Congrats!

No The alt mod was removed from the bike.
So all the numbers above are from the bike's stator.

How long will the battery last with these numbers? I have a gel battery.

I found I could have put the boot spring on, as I could move the universe joint far enough apart to put it in. I did not think about it until the circlip finally snapped into place.

Short answer - Need to find out the why.

Carrying on:

In order to determine how long a battery will last you need to know what the amp hour (AH) rating of the battery, what the load is on the battery. The issue is that the charging system is not compensating for this new load, nor is it compensating and adjusting the electrical system voltage to the regulator reference voltage of approximately 14.2 VDC.

The battery in my '85 LTD has a rating of 22.1 AH. The accepted draw down for any battery is 50% of the AH rating, before a recharge is needed. In my case with no charging, the useful power available out of this battery is just a bit over 11 AH. If the load in question was 1 amp, the battery would deliver 11 hours of useful power.

If the charging system is not working as it should, I would suspect that you will not get more than an hour, probably less than 30 minutes, out of the battery before the bike quits, and this is looking at a linear discharge. The discharge will probably be more of an exponential discharge and the time may be considerably less. Thinking out loud.

A fully charged battery voltage is approximately 12.7 VDC. From your comments, the battery is still being charged at 13.5 VDC. When the electrical system has a voltage of 12.4 VDC the battery is supplementing the charging system, and unless the electrical system voltage is raised to charge the battery and operate the electrical system, it will be a downhill slide.

The heated clothing that I have can use up to 8 amps when on (heated liner - not vest and gloves) - yours apparently a bit more because of the numbers you have mentioned. Your electrical system voltage drop is approximately 1 VDC - correlates fairly close to the amp draw from your heated clothing I would think.

A typical battery state of charge chart:

The battery is at approximately 80% at a voltage of 12.4 VDC. It's a matter of diminishing returns at this point because as the battery discharges and needs to be charged, and the charging system is not capable of doing this, the electrical system voltage will reduce until the bike stops.

Monitoring the voltage level is all you really can do at this point. If you have to use your heated clothing, turn off all other external loads that you control such as driving lights. Try to keep the voltage level in the electrical system as high as possible.

You mention that you have removed the alt mod, and are using the internal alternator again. Have you connected the alternator up as per the original wiring? Connecting the alternator yellow wires up to the regulator and the output red/white wires back through the wiring harness wires as before the alt mod?

Just a few thoughts on your issue, I'm sure others will chime in to help. Good luck.

Cheers

With the alt mod I simply disconnected the plug at the regulator. I used the hot black wire from this plug to connect the alt mod. So all I did was connected the plugs back to original.


I bought a AGM PC680 Odyssey battery in March.

Love a mystery, had to ask the question.

Ernest you will find that agm battery charge states are higher than a conventional lead acid batteries’

Ansimp - AGMs are a different beast. Will look into this some more. The charging system on these older bikes was designed during the lead-acid era. We now have more options available to us (small lead acid batteries are all but gone).

Found this on the internet:

You can safely charge an AGM battery at the 5 hour rate, but it won't be fully charged in that time. ... Unlike flooded Lead-Acid, AGM batteries can only take a small amount of overcharging, so to equalize them you have to charge each battery separately (using a 12V charger with 13.8V float)

The interesting number here is the 13.8V float. Wilcoy02 electrical system is at 13.6 VDC.

From another web site:

Deep Cycle AGM:- AGM batteries should be charged using a charger with a mode switch for AGM type batteries. It is recommended to use a charger, current limited to 20% or 0.2C of the batteries capacity at a charging voltage of between 14.6 – 14.8V following deep cycle use, or 13.6V – 13.8V for standby use.

Again we see the 13.6 to 13.8 VDC standby voltage.

It is generally accepted that 14.2 VDC is approximately a good electrical system to maintain our older style batteries. I would think that 14.2 VDC could be detrimental to a fully charged AGM battery.

AGM batteries are not as forgiving as gel or lead acid, and is it possible that the battery is determining the electrical system voltage of 13.6 versus 14.2 that we have come to understand as the norm for these charging systems. I mention this because from what I have read and understand, AGM batteries have specific charging requirements, unlike gel and lead acid. I also read where 12.4 VDC is an important number for AGM batteries regarding discharge voltage.

Wilcoy02 - Have you talked to a battery shop regarding older style charging systems and how the AGM affects these or are affected by these - going into town later and will drop into my local battery shop and ask the question? Wondering if putting a gel or lead acid in would change the electrical system voltage reading back to what we have come accustomed to?

Just thinking out loud.

Cheers

I do think charging systems of yesteryear bikes kill the Agm batteries ...seems battery tech is going backwards not forward

Ernest I regularly work with late model vehicles that have pcm/ecm controlled regulators/alternators and the range of voltage for charging is huge. From 12v ( not charging) up to just below 16v (fast charging) with nearly all these vehicles having agm batteries. To charge an agm (or any battery now) a smart charger is definitely the way to go as they vary the voltage and current and review the charging rates accordingly. :yes: