[ST] Re: New ST killing batteries!

[don draper <donnydogood@xxxxxxx>]

       According to son Mo, the engine failure sequence is as
follows:

1) Bike runs normally but tach drops to zero
2) Shortly thereafter the rest of the instruments and lights go away
3) Bike becomes hard to ride, won't idle.

 The engine never really quits completely. The battery just gets too
weak to keep the engine
management circuitry alive. It justs start running so rough that it's
hard to keep it going
and you stall it trying to pull away from a traffic light or stop
sign.

 It doesn?t start again after having cooled off for a short period of
time; the battery is
completely depleted by then and there's no chance in hell that it'll
start again. If you let it
sit overnight the indicator lights will come on dimly and the starter
makes that classic
clattering sound like there's not enough voltage to spin the starter
solenoid fast enough to
overcome it's spring tension.  The only way to get it to start again
is to recharge the
battery completely or install a different battery. Either of these
will fire it right up!

 The battery shows significantly less than 12V after each failure.
Depending on how far I
try to push it, it can be down to about 11.3 or 11.4 Volts.  Recharge
or replace the battery
and the bike starts and runs fine, until it kills that battery. 
Other indications are:

 1) Alternator isn't charging.  When a fully charged battery is
installed (12.8 ~ 12.9 Volts)
and the bike is started, voltage drops down to around 11.90 Volts. 
Voltage doesn't increase
with engine revs, at least up to 3,500~4,000 RPM, which is as hard as
I'm supposed to rev it
on the break-in schedule with 25 miles on it.

 2) The last episode I was lucky to nurse it home. After the battery
started to get really
flat (around 5 miles into the ride) the Engine Management Light came
on and now the bike is
in "Limp Home" mode. I put in a fresh battery from another bike at
that point and it fired
up immediately, but the Engine Management light is still on and it's
very difficult to ride.

 3) There's a svere electrical problem. It not only fails to charge
the battery, but it puts a tremendous drain on the battery. Even
without charging, a fresh battery should get you much more than 5 or
10 miles before it is completely flat!

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