1974 CB450 - maintenance, repair, and upgrade log

Sounds like an aging battery that dropped too low and capacity is kaput - I swear these motorcycle batteries are fragile in that regard.
 
RobMan said:
My experience is mostly with wet lead acid batteries but if I got 4 years out of one I was very pleased. Most of them usually failed after 2 or 3 years.
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I keep pretty good records and before I looked up the purchase date I was *thinking* it was two or three years old. It's going on five and it went through a very harsh winter this year, so I guess I can't complain. Time flies.

I ordered a Motobatt replacement and look forward to favoring this bike for a little while to make up for lost time.
 
The Motobatt MB12U battery arrived and I installed it along with my spare NOS spark advancer and a fresh set of Nippon Denso W22ES-U sparkplugs (once step hotter than the NGK B8ES plugs I took out).

Both plugs were showing signs of fouling that I believe is related to using off-the-shelf springs on my spark advance. All of the springs I've tested so far yield a much later start for the advance curve and the ignition system doesn't seem to tolerate that very well.

I made a short ride in and around the nearby Tower Grove Park this morning, stopping at the Turkish Pavilion for a photo.

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I've been trying to carry my tool roll to ward off mechanical and electrical gremlins, yet twice my left mirror has gotten loose on recent rides. Usually I can fix it by carefully hand-tightening the nut and turning the whole mirror to get it tight at a desired spot, but it came loose a second time today, so I decided to pull out a 14mm wrench and do it right. The tool kit fits in one of my jacket pockets and folds out nicely on the tank.

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I had a Yuasa AGM battery in my 750 and got about 7-8 years out of it. I would put it on a tender for a few days each month during winter storage.
It finally gave up the ghost last year and I replaced it with a Duraboost Lithium battery. Much smaller and lighter.
 
Emlupi said:
I had a Yuasa AGM battery in my 750 and got about 7-8 years out of it. I would put it on a tender for a few days each month during winter storage.
It finally gave up the ghost last year and I replaced it with a Duraboost Lithium battery. Much smaller and lighter.
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Thanks for the suggestion. I did purchase a battery tender recently and was wondering if it would be sufficient to rotate it amongst my four riders next winter. Sounds like this should work.
 
That’s exactly what I have done for years. I just go in once in a while and move the tender from bike to bike. It seems to be working out okay.
 
stl360+450 said:
Thanks for the suggestion. I did purchase a battery tender recently and was wondering if it would be sufficient to rotate it amongst my four riders next winter. Sounds like this should work.
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Watch the amperage output though, if they charge at a half amp or higher it would be too much to leave on for days at a time.
 
ancientdad said:
Watch the amperage output though, if they charge at a half amp or higher it would be too much to leave on for days at a time.
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My old charger was a straight ½-Amp NAPA charger, always on when connected. Loaned it out and it has not been returned, so I got one from HF and another from O'Reilly's.

The HF unit charges at ½-Amp, but is microprocessor controlled for battery maintenance. It's so smart that it won't charge a battery that has less than 12 V. This cost only $10, so it'll go in the garage for maintenance duty.

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I then bought another charger from O'Reilly's so I can charge a battery that actually needs to be charged. That one seems to produce 0.8 Amps and, if it has a minimum voltage level for operation, it is much more reasonable. I couldn't find any mention of it in the instructions.
 
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