I've been having issues with my bike. It started with a bad ignition switch which I thought was a dirty starter. I fixed the ignition switch, but hitched the negative cable to the starter post, which I later find out is the positive. Hit the starter starter button and the positive started to throw sparks. so I disconnect the positive wire. The bottom line is that I made a stupid mistake and shorted the battery out for anywhere between 5 & 10 minutes.
I finished up installing the starter and putting the ground cable to the proper spot, then put the charger on my battery. Started the bike, which ran like crap at first, but then seemed to smooth out. Went to fill my tank and left the station only to have the bike start surging within 3 miles. Make it home and put the charger on the battery and call it a night. The battery is 1 year old and always performed well for me.
I woke up this morning and notice that the battery isn't fully charged. Hmmmmmm checked the battery with a multimeter and it's showing 16 volts! I also notice that there's not much acid in the battery and I top it off with fresh acid. Charged it for a little bit, check the voltage and it reads 14.4 volts, perfect. Throw it in the bike and she will idle great, but the motor cuts out with any throttle at all. I check the voltage with the key on and the voltage is dropping rather quickly from 13.6 to 12.39 within maybe 1 minute. I throw the charger back on it and the voltage is climbing just as quickly, maybe a full volt within a minute. I know it's a bad sign when the battery charges or discharges rapidly.
My questions are will the bike idle fine but totally die when any throttle is applied from a bad battery? Will an otherwise good battery go bad if it's shorted out for 5-10 minutes? And finally, what's the expected life span of a battery in these K1100's? I would sometimes put it on a trickle charge, if it was very cold out, to maintain it.
Once again any help or opinions are greatly appreciated! :2thumbup:
