74 CB360 - parasitic drain

huck_finn

Been Around the Block
After riding, parking, and coming back to the bike at the end of my work day, I am finding a dead battery. Are there obvious places on a 360 that I could start looking for parasitic drain? I have made sure the battery is good (fully charged it, let it sit over night off the bike and voltage remained at the same level). But when I place it on the bike, let it sit for 4 hours, the voltage dropped from 13.70 to 13.11.

Battery: EarthX Lithium (ETX12A)
No electric start
Inline fuse (courtesy of my Sparck Moto wiring harness)
New condenser
Original coils
Original headlight
Only LEDs on the bike at the moment are for my gauges, and hi/low - turn - neutral


No stop and go traffic on my ride to/from work (two stop signs in my neighborhood, and then a straight 10 mile road to my parking lot). Keeping revs at/above 3,500K
 
Can start by checking voltage draw on the negative side of battery, IIRC its one prong of your multimeter to the ground to harness and other probe to the battery negative. If you get any reading there you have parasitic drain.

If not, then its your charging system. There are some good stickies on testing the stator.
 
Something is definitely fishy there. Even in stop and go traffic my battery (RD350) stays right around 14.2v +/- .25V (custom battery and regulator) as measured by my MyChron data system with a similar style charging arrangement (excited field) to what you have, and very similar in your other components as well. I run a 2.5 amp/H battery by the way, so I'd expect more fluctuation from my system.
 
I'd go through the tests that AdvCo is suggesting. With the ignition switch off and the ground strap disconnected from the battery, run a voltmeter between the negative terminal of the battery and the ground strap. You should see a nominal zero volts (.01 or .02 is fine and is normal voltage fluctuations for contacting metals of disparate types).
 
I will run through your suggestions this weekend (supposed to rain). For now, I have just been taking the battery off the bike and making sure it has a good charge before heading home. Sucks having to carry around a charger in my backpack.
 
It is the charging system. Is it worth having it re-wired, or do I just need to get a new one?


Sent from my iPhone using DO THE TON
 
Back
Top Bottom