1150gsa electrical problem

billyt53

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Hi all, my 1150gsa has been giving me elect probs for some time. Thought It would be good to replace the battery as it was about 5 yrs old. Installed new battery and put it on Ctec trickle charge. After a month or so went to start the GS and nothing!!just a faint light on the dash. Thinking the battery was a lemon I took it back to the suppliers and they replaced it no question ( Its a Varta gel battery) They said it had a dead cell. Put in new battery and did the same thing (trickle charged for a few days then go to start it again then.....nothing. Take that one back to suppliers and they replace it again (Dead cell) Third battery now ....go through the same routine.....again stuffed battery.
So this time I get out multimeter put on battery....showing 12.93v but when it hit the start button, it shows .1v. Does that mean DEAD SHORT somewhere in the harness??

Have checked starter motor, pulled apart and shows no signs of arching. A lot of the wiring harness has the outer covering perished which I have recovered with plastic sleeving.
From what I can see there doesn't appear to be any signs of burnt out wires.
What else can I do?or look for?

Thanks in advance,
Billy
 
So this time I get out multimeter put on battery....showing 12.93v but when it hit the start button, it shows .1v.

That should have read.....

So this time I get out multimeter put on battery..... showing 12.93v but when I TURN ON IGNITION KEY, it shows .1v.
 
I wouldnt leave that battery connected until youve found the culprit. Something, possibly a break in wiring causing a short, is far from right and you dont want it going up in flames. I dont know what would cause such a dramatic power drain, but cant believe youve had 4 duff batteries in a row.

I would disconnect everything aftermarket (aux lights, sat nav, etc), remove the fuel tank and carefully check for broken/chafed wires.

I would carefully reconnect the battery, ignition on, meter across the battery and then one by one pull fuses until the voltage comes back up. That way you at least find out what circuit the issue is on and can narrow the search down.
 
I still have accessories connected at the moment but I will do as you say and disconnect them all and go from there. All the disintegrated sheathing is a pain in the butt. I guess that wouldn't have helped things either. I will persist. Thanks for replying.
 
Silly question but did you try and start bike after putting the new battery in? Try Jump starting bike, if your able to do that then it is most likely to be the battery.

I'm going with another duff battery.

Next time don't leave the bike on the charger. FWIW most new batteries are already fully charged.

If the battery turns out ok then do the leak test as gog has described.
 
Is the battery leaking ?

Is there a puddle of electricity on your garage floor ?
 
Firstly, & this is going to sound crazy I know, but have you got the battery terminals the right way round? No insult intended, many of us will have put in a generic battery where the case stucture looks similar to OE, only to find the pos & neg terminals reversed.

Otherwise, 12.93v down to 0.1v when you press the starter button - that is quite some drain, virtually a dead short. Normally this would simply blow a fuse, so surely it just has to be the starter motor. Pressing the button & the solenoid is fed ciurrent through a relay: -
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sho...MW-R_1150_GS_Adv_01_0441,0492_&diagId=61_5778. Do you get any noise from the solenoid whatsoever - I am expecting a click of engagement & then the massive voltage drop as the starter is fed juice. Why not disconnect the starter motor & get a couple of mates to give you a bump start. With the engine running you could then check whether the battery is charging.

Why the battery should then fail to be maintained by a trickle charger seems like another issue TBH. Any aux/retro fit electricals have to be questioned first. Alarms, lights, satnav cradles can all create parasitic drain.

Hope this helps. Good luck finding the gremlin.
 
he said it was just with ignition on squibb, corrected the first post in the second

Sorry, my bad. Read what my brain thought it saw.

Methodical check of the whole system then, as your post 3. I still wonder how the fusing could support a discharge at that level. Reverse polarity still a possibility.

Maybe a bit more back story would help us focus; a detailed explanation of the past electrical issues, age, mileage, accident damage history. When was it last running properly & how did issues emerge.
 
It's just a thought, but if the grease plate on the starter has actually welded itself to the armature, would it do this? Possible, no?

The starter has a lot to answer for!




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The starter was removed yesterday after reading a couple of articles on here. All good with the starter. A bit of history....the GSA has been in the garage for a couple of years out of rego, but is regularly started up to keep things happy. It's never had any electrical issues in the past. It's done 87,000 klm, no accidents. The last time I took it out for a ride was about 3 mths ago when I got the latest battery. It fired up right away and went well. Thats when I placed the ctek on it. Funny thing is it's happened every time I put the trickle charger on it. Maybe a duff charger....all the lights on the charger look to be doing the right thing. More searching!!
 
Had a similar problem turned out to be the started and i took the starter off and got it bench tested by an auto spark when i did get to the bottom of it i stripped down the starter and one of the magnets had came adrift from the caising
 
I took the battery back to the supplier again and they are replacing it again!! Iv'e checked all the wiring that I can access and replaced most of the disintegrating sheathing as well. So far all looks well with the wiring with no burnt bits that I can see.
This time I won't be putting the battery on trickle charge as that seems to be the reason I'm getting dead cells in the previous batteries. It'll be a couple of days before I pick up the new battery, so we'll see what happens then. The charger is a Ctec and is only 2 months old. It replaced another trickle charger of dubious quality. It seems trickle charging fries a cell in the battery :nenau

There are no burn marks or loose magnets in the starter.
 
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Im unconvinced that all the batteries have been duff, or that the charger is killing them. Easy to check, put jump leads on it from a known good charged battery (ie your car) and *BRIEFLY* turn on the ignition to check if the voltage drops again. Ctek make decent chargers, ive been using them ages and never had one fry a cell, and its connected a lot, on both lead acid and AGM batts. Your charger likely (if similar to mine) has a setting for AGM - make sure youre using the right setting for the type of battery. Though I doubt this would cause the "damage" you're thinking is happening.

Simple, quick and easy checks will rule out these initial things.
 


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