Well, that was a bit too exciting (battery failure)

So far, my bestie and I managed to extricate the alternator from the depths of my bike. It took us a day and a half! I quickly discovered the thing was nearly seized. It's bloody lucky it lasted as long as it did, or I might have been 150 miles – or even 450 miles – away from my garage at the time. The diagnosis was that it had been affected by water or moisture, because the stator and armature were jamming against each other. Strikes me as pretty sucky for only 50k miles, although I don't know anything of how the bike was used or stored before me, and it may just be the UK's crappy climate and winter road treatment.

I have a rebuilt unit coming, so I am hoping against all hope that the ECU has survived. The catastrophist in me fears a 300kg paperweight.
 
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St-Gerard said:
"One note on chargers, AGM batteries don't like the disulfating mode."

MY QUESTION: Do "Battery Tender" modern smart chargers automatically have disulfication as part of their multi-step charging process? That's what I have: the Battery Tender Junior that only uses something like 800 mW and cost $40.

All the motorcycle batteries that came with the used bikes that I bought, and the batteries I have put in them since then, have all been AGM.
 
Arellcat said:
So far, my bestie and I managed to extricate the alternator from the depths of my bike. It took us a day and a half! I quickly discovered the thing was nearly seized. It's bloody lucky it lasted as long as it did, or I might have been 150 miles – or even 450 miles – away from my garage at the time. The diagnosis was that it had been affected by water or moisture, because the stator and armature were jamming against each other. Strikes me as pretty sucky for only 50k miles, although I don't know anything of how the bike was used or stored before me, and it may just be the UK's crappy climate and winter road treatment.

I have a rebuilt unit coming, so I am hoping against all hope that the ECU has survived. The catastrophist in me fears a 300kg paperweight.
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Bike was still running when you got home correct? Which would mean it probably has survived the ordeal.not sure about the Abs computer though,as you said it started flashing it's light.
 
Not sure if any ready mentioned above, but many intelligent chargers (e.g. OptiMate) require the battery to be disconnected from the vehicle for all charging/recovery programs to work. This includes the Desulphation feature.

I've recovered several batteries using this feature, and definitely extended the life of all my batteries using their chargers.

Not all intelligent chargers will have Desulphation feature - check the manufacturer's technical specification but I would be nervous about some 'cheap and cheerful' chargers that claim to have this feature. OptiMate are my go-to vendor for this...
 
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