Can an overcharged battery cause starting problems?

[Travlr]

When I turn on the key on my 12S the dash lights come on, the gauge needles sweep and the gas pump clicks.  When I hit the starter I hear a click, then nothing.  If I hit the starter button again nothing happens, not even a click.

After it sits bit I hear a series of clicks and it appears to reset.  When I hit starter button I again hear a click, then nothing happens.
This can go on repeatedly.  Click, no start, reset.

I had my battery tested and it shows 13 volts.  The mechanic speculated perhaps some circuit is receiving too much voltage.  Can this happen?

Mike 

[oldbike54]

 13 volts is what it should show . Kinda sounds like a bad relay or a bad ground ?

 Dusty

[fotoguzzi]

By testing the battery did you just check the voltage with a meter? That means nothing, you need to load test the battery. After that try swapping relays around or get new ones.

[Travlr]

By testing the battery did you just check the voltage with a meter? That means nothing, you need to load test the battery. After that try swapping relays around or get new ones.

Under load it went to 11 volts.

Mike

[Kev m]

13 volts is what it should show . Kinda sounds like a bad relay or a bad ground ?

 Dusty

Sounds like a bad mechanic too (or op didn't understand him).

12S? Could this be Startus Interruptus?

[kirby1923]

I would do two things:

1. check batt posts for corrosion including the ground cable to the mounting on the machine as well.

2. Have the batt load tested as I have seen this happen as you describe and it turned out to me a failed batt under load test.

My .02c

[Kiwi_Roy]

Sounds like a bad mechanic too (or op didn't understand him).

12S? Could this be Startus Interruptus?

Most likely, I need to figure out what a 12S is? Must be this one with Startus Interuptus built in as a feature.
https://www.thisoldtractor.com/guzzi007/schematics/2007_Norge.gif

The Start relay is fed through the ignition switch, as it ages the yellow feed to the relay gets weak and the Voltage drops to where it can no longer pull in the starter solenoid.
Its very easy to fix with a direct feed to the relay, that will make it start better than you have ever seen.
--
Just to test this theory take a wire about 4' long with a spade connector on one end, plug it into the starter solenoid trigger terminal in place of the Orange Green and touch the other end onto battery positive.
If the battery and starter are fine it will crank like a champ NOTE, make certain the bike is in neutral before you do that and pull the clutch for safety, no need to turn the key on you are just testing the starter.

Actually that Orange Green wire is too small anyway, replace it with a new wire at least 18 AWG

BTW, you have great taste in bikes, we need 

[Murray]

Under load it went to 11 volts.

Mike

How much load? On a load tester? its dead, you can try charging it you may get it back.

[Travlr]

Thanks all!  I took the battery back to Batteries Plus where I purchased it and had it retested.  It was bad.  It was still under warranty and BP replaced it free of charge!  Kudo's to them. 

Thanks for all the advice.  I'm a happy guy and back on the road.   

Mike

[oldbike54]

 We love a happy ending 

 Dusty

[lucky phil]

And we found out his mechanic has no idea about electrics
The only real way to determine battery condition is with a load test, but here's a rub.
I recently had a 3 year old car battery fail on a modern car. Failed to start after overnight and something like 8.5 volts loaded. Toast. Removing the battery required quite a bit of manipulation and then there was the drive to the battery shop as well. I only took it as a comparison for size as the fitted location is quite tight. Anyway the battery guy grabbed his tester and did a test and it passed easily. I thought this was odd and bought the new battery anyway, fitted it and all good. I put the old one on the bench and it seemed fine with load so I charged it up and kept an eye on it for a few days with load applied. After 15 hours or so it dropped it's bundle again and this scenario repeated a few times until I tossed it. My theory is the material that had shed from the plates had settled in the bottom and shorted cells and the act of manipulating the battery stirs up the mud in the bottom of the case so to speak and the battery seems to recover again. I'm open to other theories if anyone has them but it may just get you out of trouble one day if you have a battery failure. Pull it out and shake it up a little and refit to get you to the next town or home.

Ciao

[fotoguzzi]

we never found out what a 12S is... just sayin'

[oldbike54]

we never found out what a 12S is... just sayin'

 1200 Sport .

 Dusty

[Travlr]

we never found out what a 12S is... just sayin'

So sorry, a 1200 Sport.

Mike

[Kiwi_Roy]

I agree you need to do a load test on the battery the thing is most battery sources don't have a load tester suitable for a relatively small motorcycle battery.
Having said that we do have a motorcycle with a starter motor that will draw over 100 Amps, I have noticed my V7 battery will hold 10 Volts while cranking so I consider the Voltage while cranking to be a good test.

I think you need to cut the mechanic some slack, he's probably not used to working on Guzzi's with their crazy wiring.

Travir, if you haven't taken care of that weak yellow wiring to the start relay and the tiny wire from the relay to the solenoid you need to before it comes back to bite.
The Inrush current to the solenoid is at least 30 Amps, should be more like 50. The wire from the relay to the solenoid should be at least an 18 gauge.

[Kiwi_Roy]

Please read through the other "Startus Interuptus" thread, there are hundreds of these scattered over the forums
https://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?topic=76646.0
This guy as made a nice short video about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOIo3XpaOds
Before you watch it I would like to point out that his headlight (running light) is wired to the park light which is fed by the same weak yellow wire.

[Wayne Orwig]

And we found out his mechanic has no idea about electrics

 

[Wayne Orwig]

I put the old one on the bench and it seemed fine with load so I charged it up and kept an eye on it for a few days with load applied. After 15 hours or so it dropped it's bundle again and this scenario repeated a few times until I tossed it. My theory is the material that had shed from the plates had settled in the bottom and shorted cells and the act of manipulating the battery stirs up the mud in the bottom of the case so to speak and the battery seems to recover again. I'm open to other theories if anyone has them but it may just get you out of trouble one day if you have a battery failure. Pull it out and shake it up a little and refit to get you to the next town or home.

If the plates are doing there job, but some spooge in the battery shorts them out, that would be a lot of energy being turned to heat pretty quickly. As in, things would get hot and bubbly real fast. Plus, the 12 volt battery might turn into a 10 volt battery. It would likely still start, just poorly.
I am going with a cracked weld or cracked plates. Wiggle it a bit, and lose the connection to half the plates. With a cracked connection, you might drop a LOT more voltage, when under the right load. That used to be really common with Yuasa motorcycle batteries many years ago. They eventually admitted that they weren't welding the plates right.

[Sasquatch Jim]

 No, but a dead battery can.

[lucky phil]

If the plates are doing there job, but some spooge in the battery shorts them out, that would be a lot of energy being turned to heat pretty quickly. As in, things would get hot and bubbly real fast. Plus, the 12 volt battery might turn into a 10 volt battery. It would likely still start, just poorly.
I am going with a cracked weld or cracked plates. Wiggle it a bit, and lose the connection to half the plates. With a cracked connection, you might drop a LOT more voltage, when under the right load. That used to be really common with Yuasa motorcycle batteries many years ago. They eventually admitted that they weren't welding the plates right.

Ok thanks, interesting and another matter to ponder. The problem you have with modernish injection systems and control ecu's is they have a threshold voltage at which point they just simply shut down the whole system. The car that had the recent battery failure actually went totally crazy though. Lots of systems warnings including the key battery and all sorts of stuff. Luckily I was aware of the system madness that can occur with a failed battery on a modern car otherwise I would have thought the BCM had blown up. I like the old days when a low battery meant slow cranking, not anymore for the most part. I had a K100s BMW have a charging system failure when I was in the IOM in the mid 80's. Similar thing, going fine then just stopped dead on the side of the road. Battery voltage dropped below 10.5 volts and the system just shut down a running bike. Batteries......I hate batteries.

Ciao

[Tom H]

I had a car that started fine, went to the market for about an hour. Went to start the car and all sorts of dash lights started flashing, and it would not start. New battery and back on the road.

I have had batteries tested at auto parts stores with their large tester that looks like a sand blast cabinet. They told me the battery was fine for my truck. A few days latter of just sitting with the negative lead off and a flat battery. New battery all was fine.

So testing a battery, even load testing may not reveals a bad battery.

Tom

[Kiwi_Roy]

Guys,
        I posted this guys video on here because it gives a great explanation of the Moto Guzzi Startus Interuptus problem.
Like others he went through all the bad battery assumptions eventually to finally realize it was nothing to do with the battery but came down to the flakey wiring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOIo3XpaOds
Notice up front when he tries to start the headlight goes dim, this was caused by Voltage drop in the ignition switch, on this bike he has the circular driving light hooked to the park light, fed from the same weak yellow wire. When he presses the start button the ECU
turns on the Start Relay and the load of the solenoid sucks down the Voltage on the yellow wire. The ECU latches the Start signal for a few seconds. You would also see this if you watched the number plate or a normal small park bulb.
Heres something to think about, given that the starter solenoid typically draws 30 Amps (you will have to take my word for that), how much resistance do you need to drop say 2 Volts
By Ohms Law
2 / 30 = 0.066 Ohms, not very much eh!, my guess is he's losing at least 4 Volts

He does have his wiring sketch a little off.

You can easily measure the resistance of the solenoid spade connector to chassis and work out by Ohms law how much current the solenoid will draw.
I would be interested to hear what resistance you found, and current you calculate.

I suspect most of the resistance in circuit is caused by a dirty contact in the ignition switch, I couldn't find the current specification of the switch contacts but I would be surprised if it's much more than 20 Amps
I'm sure the problem could be staved off for a while by cleaning the ignition switch but I'm not going to push that, IMHO it's the bad design that needs fixing.

I must have tried 100 different ways to get through to owners what the problem really boils down to.

[Guzzi Gal]

So sorry, a 1200 Sport.

Mike

Domes of Casa Grande?  I wanted to go on a ride to check them out but I hear they've been closed.

[Travlr]

Domes of Casa Grande?  I wanted to go on a ride to check them out but I hear they've been closed.

Good eye!  They are private property and posted.  But you can pay a fee and photograph there.  I know they also shoot some music video's there.  Fun place.

Mike

[chuck peterson]

As an on the road fix, on a cal III

6-8 inches, even shorter if possible, of a heavy gauge wire and a pair of insulated pliers can be your new starter. Jump power from the solenoid to the starter

I stopped bothering with pushing the starter button until I could get home

Dropped the level of agitation/frustration to zero and made the rest of a week long trip....fantastic

After doing the fix it never happened again

[Kiwi_Roy]

As an on the road fix, on a cal III

6-8 inches, even shorter if possible, of a heavy gauge wire and a pair of insulated pliers can be your new starter. Jump power from the solenoid to the starter

I stopped bothering with pushing the starter button until I could get home

Dropped the level of agitation/frustration to zero and made the rest of a week long trip....fantastic

After doing the fix it never happened again

There's no reason to give up on the starter and you can always resort to a push
I assume you went from the spade terminal to the large hot one.
When I was at the last National at John Day there was one old guy who had ridden his Breva all the way from New York starting like that.
I showed him how to fix it but I suspect he rode all the way home the same way.