CB360 - Monoshock Brat

[gk45011]

Good info, Thanks Trek.

Gary

 

[crazypj]

If your only doing 2 holes you may as well get HSS from Home Despot or similar for less than half the price.
Harbor Freight has a set of TCT hole saws as well which are pretty cheap but the brazing isn't fantastic if you get them overheated (I'm drilling through 3/4"~1"+ alloy though)

 

[compoundcycles]

After a brief hiatus from the workshop things at the day job have calmed down and I can get back to it.

First off here's a failed attempt at making a fairing to hide my instruments. It's just ugly, won't be staying.


I was inspired by this bike. Maybe I'll do another attempt once she's street legal.
http://kustomking.blogspot.com/2013/04/silver-bug.html

 

[compoundcycles]

Had to strip her down a bit...

- Honda-bonded the camshaft cover seal
- Changed pilot jet down from a 45 to a 35
- Adjusted tappets and timing
- Mounted the taillight/turnsignal assembly
- Painted the battery box
- Shortened the gauge mounts
- Working on reinstating the front fork brace to get a stronger suspension
- Just realized I still need to put a license plate somewhere

 

[Rat Rider]

thats looking amazing ! nice work

 

[VietHorse]

Your monoshock looks classic! Just love it.
And the exhaust can. Neat!

 

[compoundcycles]

Thanks guys.

So I just ran into a problem. Battery is no longer charging.

- When the battery was removed from the bike I welded my tail light assembly bracket to the frame.
- Put the battery back in and put the wires back exactly the same.
- Bike started right up and ran for a while, eventually died.
- I tried hitting the starter button and noticed no juice. Tested with multimeter and confirmed it was dead.

Did I fry my reg/rec or stator when I welded the frame? I grounded the welder to the exhaust pipe when I welded on the seat hoop area. The reg/rectifier is bolted to the frame and was connected electrically to the stator during welding.

Any help, or a good workflow to find out what the problem is would be much appreciated.

 

[compoundcycles]

I can get it started by kicking and staying on the throttle. Getting 4v from the reg/rec

 

[crazypj]

Really doubtful you fried reg/rect while welding although connecting to exhaust wasn't the best thing to do as there are multiple bolted connections between it and frame.
You won't usually get 12v from reg/rect, are you measuring battery volts while running?
Probably need to charge battery before doing any tests, trying to charge a 'dead' battery with bikes charging system usually burns stuff out as it can't cope with max throughput for extended periods

 

[compoundcycles]

When I got the 4v reading I was measuring the regulator output while kickstarting the motor. Also, while running the bike (it was running rough) but I got it started long enough to take a reading.

I was almost certain that my battery was fully charged before starting the bike, it ran for a while, then died, and the battery was dead. So I figured it wasn't getting charged. Could something be grounding out my battery an killing the juice?

 

[crazypj]

faulty rectifier will allow current to go back through alternator windings.
Suzuki had problems with it in the 80's, did quite a few new alternators under warranty

 

[compoundcycles]

I've had the battery on a charger for about 8hrs now. Took the charger off and got 12+ volts...but the voltage dropped rapidly down to 9v something.

Why would my battery all of a sudden stop holding a charge. It never had this problem before. Anyone else have experience with these ballistic 4cells?

 

[Brodie]

I find that mine runs out after a bit of cranking but I have never checked the voltage. I will go have a look now for you.

EDIT: Mine is sitting at 13.05 and has not been charged in a while.

 

[Rich Ard]

Re: Re: CB360 - Monoshock Brat

I've had the battery on a charger for about 8hrs now. Took the charger off and got 12+ volts...but the voltage dropped rapidly down to 9v something.

Why would my battery all of a sudden stop holding a charge. It never had this problem before. Anyone else have experience with these ballistic 4cells?

If it drops below 10V it's cooked.

 

[crazypj]

I've had the battery on a charger for about 8hrs now. Took the charger off and got 12+ volts...but the voltage dropped rapidly down to 9v something.

Why would my battery all of a sudden stop holding a charge. It never had this problem before. Anyone else have experience with these ballistic 4cells?

Bad battery, it happens. Try calling them.
(it could also be overcharging?)
I believe they have very tight voltage requirements?

 

[VietHorse]

I've had the battery on a charger for about 8hrs now. Took the charger off and got 12+ volts...but the voltage dropped rapidly down to 9v something.

Why would my battery all of a sudden stop holding a charge. It never had this problem before. Anyone else have experience with these ballistic 4cells?

So it must be bad battery, unless you found some short circuit location on your bike.
Be careful with Ballistic 4 cell. Heard not a good feedback about it from CX500 forum inmate:

From what i can tell the positive battery terminal broke inside the battery and just spins, cant undo the screw to remove the cable and ended up having to break it off... after doing some research seems like that is a issue with these batteries. Must have caused a internal short and melted down. Im just pumped it didn't catch fire and burn the garage/house down. I have left numerous messages with ballistic and needless to say I am less than pleased about this. On a positive note I got it out of the bike just as I planned with out having to remove the engine which is good! and I picked up my Ignitech from Cobram.

 

[compoundcycles]

Thanks for the info everyone. I've been testing every combination trying to find something that seems out of place. Here's a short vid I shot explaining one scenario I can't explain...But it might all come back to BAD BATTERY.

Pardon my poor use of terminology and lack of a better explanation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxmiV2CYFX8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Again, I hooked everything back up exactly how it was before I pulled the battery and welded my tail light bracket to the frame. I have older pictures to prove it. AND the bike ran fine for the first 5min or so after putting the battery back in.

Maybe I should call Ballistic. It's a shame people are having problems with these 4cells I've kinda designed around it.

I need to know why the battery was fine before and then went bad. I don't want to get a new battery and have my electrical system kill it. I can't figure out what went wrong.

 

[mydlyfkryzis]

All those lithium based batteries are sensitive to overvoltage and over-discharge. If you look at the hobby industry, they have loads a special chargers to handle the charging, and the batteries have special circuitry to prevent discharging below a safe level.

A 35+ year old bike just does not have the proper voltage regulation and under voltage protection for the Li type battery. Do they work? yes...Are they reliable in this application - No...

They are small for the capacity, can be mounted all sort of ways. But I would never use one, as the old bikes really don't treat them well. The old bikes kill conventional batteries too, but not as spectacularly as they kill the Li based ones. Not many people have ever melted down, exploded, or set fire to a conventional battery. But the internet is full of Li batteries that do that.

If the lightweight battery was really reliable, every car Mfg would have it, as it saves a bit of weight....They don't use them for a good reason.

 

[Rich Ard]

All those lithium based batteries are sensitive to overvoltage and over-discharge. If you look at the hobby industry, they have loads a special chargers to handle the charging, and the batteries have special circuitry to prevent discharging below a safe level.

A 35+ year old bike just does not have the proper voltage regulation and under voltage protection for the Li type battery. Do they work? yes...Are they reliable in this application - No...

They are small for the capacity, can be mounted all sort of ways. But I would never use one, as the old bikes really don't treat them well. The old bikes kill conventional batteries too, but not as spectacularly as they kill the Li based ones. Not many people have ever melted down, exploded, or set fire to a conventional battery. But the internet is full of Li batteries that do that.

If the lightweight battery was really reliable, every car Mfg would have it, as it saves a bit of weight....They don't use them for a good reason.

Yep.

If you are dead set on using the LiFePo battery then you would be well served to do some test running of the bike with a conventional battery with a live voltmeter while you're out running the bike - you may find that under load you're pushing 16V+ to the battery and cooking it, or dropping below the 10V mark. I ran a 4-cell battery on my CB450 all last year and - much to my embarassement - forgot to put in the new Kohler reg/rec I had on the shelf. My old regulator finally cooked the battery this year and I decided to put a small AGM battery in instead...if you're going kickstart only, those batteries are not particularly large as well (I have hidden mine in a very small box between the frame rails and it is not visible unless you get down on your knees).

 

[compoundcycles]

Thanks for the info guys. I'm not using the stock reg/rectifier as you can see in the video I posted, so I figured that would offer some protection against the 30yr old bike comments. My main concern is that everything was fine even after the battery went back in the bike, ran it at idle for about 5min then down the street and back and she died. I didn't think that would be enough to over or under volt this sucker.

I really don't know where I would put a different sized battery.