Norge Battery

[atavar]

Well, after a long winter the Yuasa battery in the Norge was all but toast.  It would charge and hold a charge but it only held capacity for about one revolution of crank after an all night charge. 
Having no dealers nearby I got an interstate AGM battery (20AH) and it seems to be doing well.  The bike starts within the first half crank now.  The only issue is that the AGM battery is about an inch wider than the original, so the positive terminal is exposed outside of the battery cover.  I don't think this is a big issue.
Have any of you had experience with Interstate AGM?  I know I really like them in my cars, so I figured they'd be ok in the bike.
I have it on the battery tender now to make sure it gets a full charge at the beginning.


My wifes Baby Breva is in worse shape.  The charger does not see her battery at all.  What would you recommend for that bike?

[Kiwi_Roy]

Re Norge
It will only be a big issue if you short it out.
Scrape the terminals and smear a little petroleum jelly aka Vaseline on there, it will ensure you don't loose connection.

Re Breva
A battery tender gets confused by a really flat battery, hook it in parallel with another battery for a few seconds, once the tender sees it's a 12Volt it will take over.
I have several old wall worts that put out ~ 500 mA at 12Volts, they don't get confused.

Next year disconnect the battery over winter, the bikes ECU draws a few milliamps, that's what is flattening them.
Give them each a few hours on the tender once every couple of months, don't leave them on 24/7

[GuzziPilot]

You could also fab up a new battery cover out heavy gauge plastic, or rivet an extension to your current cover, or even just slip a piece of plastic under the cover and over the terminal.  

A for the battery, does your charger have an agm mode?  AGMs don't bleed energy as quickly and require less frequent charging than good 'ol lead acids.  And are more sensitive to over charging......

And my owners manual advises removing the main 30amp fuse for extended storage.......which I ignored, and opted to keep the battery on a charger all winter.  Shutting the bike down fully, bothers me.....so I don't 🙏

Lee

[canuguzzi]

A very good 3 stage charger can be left on the battery and it will not over charge or damage it in any way. The key is a "good" charger, they aren't cheap but then you'll not damage batteries nor have to think about connecting or disconnecting over a winter.

Battery tenders are just that, meant to maintain a condition. AGM batteries are far more forgiving than flooded lead acid types, they are better at all temps you might encounter, don't leak, are nearly explosion proof even if short circuited and have much lower internal resistance.

A good quality AGM can discharge to a lower level and still recover much better than the flooded types.

Interstate has pretty good batteries and you can usually find an outlet if yours needs replacing while on warranty. Gotta watch their techs though, they might try to bamboozle you with yippy yap if the battery fails during warranty. Their solution is usually to swap you out with a loaner while they test your battery over a 24-48 hour period. Just tell them that isn't going to work and push a little, they'll have to get manager approval but you'll get a new battery.

Kragen sells decent motorcycle AGMs too and they handle warranty really good, you just get a new one on the spot, my experience anyway.

While AGMs are vibration resistant more than flooded ones, if the fitment of the battery is so tight it touches the frame, that isn't good.

[Scott of the Sahara]

I think I would unscrew the battery cover and move it over to the positive termanal. Drill new holes for the screws. The Negative one does not need protection.