Running bike until battery dies - bad?

[Guest]

I have an 84 GS1150 that seems to be having charging problems (yeah, I'm getting real familiar with "the stator papers"!). By the time I arrived at work this morning, I could barely see that the headlight was on. I had to get a boost to get it started, and by the time I was a couple of blocks from home (about 25km later) it died when I dropped it down to an idle.

Question: am I doing any damage by letting it run on the (dying) battery only? It felt like it was running rough towards the end there...

[Anonymous]

hey

hey man, I have a GS400E and I had battery problems to. The battery kept dieing so I had to always "bum start" it, aka runnin down a hill in 2nd then droppin the clutch. It sucked. One evening at an intersection the bike completly died. shut right off. I investigated, and concluded that I had a short with the started motor cover and that my stator was shot, and I only have 7900km's on my bike. I'm a newb but I still think thats b.s.. Anyways, just bought a new one today and charging system is fine. but it took a 240$CDN hole out've my account. Rewinding was going to cost 200$. I suggust running threw some no-load alternator tests, also test your rect/reg, see what you come up with.

[Anonymous]

You are stressing your battery since the bike is not charging it is powering everything. Eventually it may give up the ghost. You are lucky it hasn't stranded you already.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, discharging a battery like that too deeply will eventually ruin it, especially if it's an older battery. Just about every time I've had to replace a battery in a car was from leaving the lights on.

There are batteries called "deep discharge" or "deep cycle" which are meant to be treated that way - charged up and then run down - but they're for golf carts, trolling motors, and other electric devices that require an external charger. They're not meant for auto/cycle applications.

The right answer is to fix your charging problem, otherwise you'll be replacing that battery a lot.

Dave

[Anonymous]

unless its dark you can always pull the fuse for the headlight

[fast eddie]

Okay, thanks for the replies. Of course I'll work on the charging problem first, my main concern was whether I was doing damage by riding that extra 1/ hour to make it home, in which time the battery drained flat.

[Anonymous]

Dang Hinermad your bike looks just like mine from your avatar. Love dem red Zukes.

[Wingnut]

I had a charging problem on my 82 850 and learned this. DO NOT OPERATE THE MOTORCYCLE WITH ANY TYPE OF CHARGING PROBLEMS. Sorry, didn't mean to yell. The problem I had, which is not to say that all problems are this way, was that when the Regulator Rectifier went bad it did not fail in a good way. It failed in a shorted way. This meant that it not only failed to charge the battery, but it was putting huge loads on the stator due to a short to ground. Wires were getting warm and everything. I believe this is the reason so many people end up replacing the RR and the Stator at the same time. They keep charging the battery and fooling around until more damage is done.

just my $.02

bob

[Anonymous]

I used to do this when I started out (no GSR then,no-one to help at all,ask abour electrics and people would run away screaming!),dead R/R,two batteries,kept one charged at all times and swapped them over when the first got low.Problem is your battery might just decide to go FUBAR when you least expect it,i.e.passing a 40ton wagon! 8O Sort it pronto,dude!

[Anonymous]

Dang Hinermad your bike looks just like mine from your avatar. Love dem red Zukes.

I noticed the similarity. Unfortunately I sometimes skip over your posts because I see your avatar and think it's mine. No offense meant!

When I went shopping for a bike I was hoping to find a red or maroon one, but with the limited budget I'd have taken just about any color as long as it ran. But I got lucky and found this one.

Dave