jumpstart

[Anonymous]

Can i jump start car with a motorcycle battery?

[Anonymous]

No. It isn't safe.

To jumpstart a car, you have to hook the two batteries in parallel and use them both to turn the car's starter. This draws way too much current. Note the difference in the thickness of the wires coming from the car's batteries and the motorcycle's battery. That tells you how much current they're intended for. There's an overheating danger at the motorcycle battery.

That said, yes, it is very possible to do. It's just not safe and I wouldn't recommend it.

You might be able to use the bike to charge the car battery and then have the car start itself, though. Be sure not to accidentally start the car with the motorcycle attached. That's the dangerous part.

Michael

[Anonymous]

I would think it would be safe as long as the car wasn't running. I've done it many times with no ill effect.

[Anonymous]

battery

I ended up taking the battery out of the car, driving it on my suzuki to work, and then charging it at 12v 40A for about 2 hours. When I took it off from charger it votage droped rapidly back to it's original 10. So now I am thinking about buying new one, but I just wanted to check to make sure:

How do you know if you can refill the battery. I was thinking about just adding destiled water not h2so4. (don't know where I'd get it). Will I delute the solution? Should I just pay the cash and not think about it?

I know this is car and not motorycle problem, but the batterys are the same, so I hope noone minds me asking this here....

Thanks

[Anonymous]

safe as houses either hook to your battery or remove side cover and hook to other end of pos cable coming from battery (small leads are better the really big clamps are a little hard to get on) and it really does not matter if the car is running .they are both 12volt systems and the power output is about the same ozman

[Anonymous]

You can jump start a motorcycle from a car, but a car from a motorcycle? Probably not. If the car's battery had almost enough current to start itself, say 98% enough, the fully charged bike battery could possibly get it over the hump. But the odds are greatly against it.

[Anonymous]

safe as houses either hook to your battery or remove side cover and hook to other end of pos cable coming from battery (small leads are better the really big clamps are a little hard to get on) and it really does not matter if the car is running .they are both 12volt systems and the power output is about the same ozman

Yes, they're both 12V but my Subaru battery is meant to cold crank 550 amps (and that's a small car engine--I've seen pickups with 1100 CCA). Bike batteries are often in the 100 amp range. Of course, you could have a super heavy-duty mega-CCA bike battery or a really easy-starting car, but I wouldn't chance it.

The problem is when you try to run a car starter on a bike battery it tries to draw that 550 CCA, and there's potential for serious damage to the bike under that kind of load.

It is fine to jump a bike from a car, as long as you don't run the car starter while the bike is connected. There's plenty of juice, and the bike starter takes only what it needs.

Michael

[Anonymous]

Always add distilled (or as clean as you can get) H2O to a battery, never acid.

[Don Lobacz]

I used to start my friend's VW bug with my GS1000. It took a few minutes to get a charge into it, but it did it pretty easily. My bike was pretty new when I did it, so there was very little power loss from weak connections. I probably wouldn't do it now (except a burned out stator would give me a good excuse to try an Electrex unit...).

[Anonymous]

Jumping a car from a MC battery could result in the MC battery exploding - if you're going to do it remove the cell caps, wear eye protection and stand clear. If you have every been near an automotive battery that has exploded, it sounds like a bomb going off.
If you charged the battery at 12V and it immediately dropped to 10V, the battery probably has a bad cell (the cell develops an internal resistance and the voltage of that cell drops)
The best test for the battery is with a hygrometer.

[Anonymous]

Jumpin Jehosefett!!!!!

Yes it is possible but admittedly dangerous.....
On a cruisin night I jumped a guys car who had been running his stereo for too long.....found a length of twelve gauge & it started OK.....the wire was on the verge of melting , but the draw wasn't prolonged & started in a few cranks but I'm sure things would have gone sour had he cranked it for some ten seconds.
Rick...........

[Guy]

Buy a new car battery..............10v across the terminals means one dead cell for sure. Trying to pull 300-500 cold cranking amps from a motorcycle battery will likely make it explode due to the sudden massive build up of hydrogen gas. I know, I found out the hard way last year.

[Anonymous]

Always add distilled (or as clean as you can get) H2O to a battery, never acid.

I agree however, another GSer told me to use acid.......I used water in leveling off and filling my 2 motorcycle batteries and they are just fine. Did I screw up or do some batteries require one to add acid instead of water...? Think his battery required acid as an additive instead of water. WTF?

[Guy]

You should only ever need to add distilled water. You can buy 'acid tabs' here in Ireland that you put into the cells to try and boost a dying battery, but I don't think they do much good. You can buy other types of acid tabs here that are great for hallucinating, but they're no good at all for motorcycle batteries.

[argonsagas]

Let's make this simple:


N E V E R A D D A C I D



Clear now?


40 amps for two hours? That is a VERY high charge rate and could cause damage to an otherwise OK battery.

As suggested, if your battery dropped back to 10 volts in a short time after that heavy a charge, the battery is history. You need a new one.


Small note:

On many current batteries, the cells are inaccessible (you cannot add anything to the battery). The manufacturer(s) call them maintenance-free and put on a small glowing light that fools you into thinking it has some useful purpose.

It is one of the more effective things manufacturers do, because that is its sole purpose.


Lead-acid batteries give off vapour when being charged, and that vapour comes from the liquid inside the battery. The maintenance-free batteries use a system to recover vapours, but some is inevitably lost, especially in times of very high charge rates being applied.

Unfortunately, with every bit of lost vapour, you lose an equivalent amount of liquid, so the battery fluid levels drop and the plates are exposed. The exposed coating, over time, falls from the exposed plates and fouls up the bottom, eventually causing a short between cells. Obviously, that is when you have no choice but to buy a new battery, but you really needed to do it some time before that, as the battery depends on full covering of every plate to operate at peak ability and efficiency. With the ongoing exposure, it is getting less and less able to deliver high current, as well as less and less able to take a full charge.

Motorcycle batteries are small in size and electrical capacity. Because of this, they are taxed quite a bit, so they almost constantly take a fairly high charge rate. Because of this, they lose a lot of vapour and it is essential to check them frequently (while the engine is stopped) and keep them topped-up with distilled water.