[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by shankarbn

It's a dead battery. There may be other issues but it is a dead battery nonetheless. When you replace the battery, pay close attention to the CCA rating on the battery and what your bike needs - IME Varta batteries are very low compared to Yuasa in the same segment.

Well, Not sure you read the post in its entirety. The replacement battery I bought from BS has a higher CCA than the Varta battery the bike currently has.

Originally Posted by shankarbn

You do not *need* a lithium ion or lipo battery. Just get a good battery.

The bike ran on a Li battery for 8 years without giving a single issue. The CCA on the Li battery was 270 amps as compared to the 180 in the BS. The generation of cross-plane R1 from 09-14 is notorious for drawing a high load on startup thanks to the headlights and the heavy crank which takes a lot of effort to crank up, Li batteries are known to manage load much better with a huge negative being it's not so great in super cold temperature which is something I don't need to worry about. Not to mention the huge positive of how the battery discharge rate is almost non-existent compared to that of a conventional battery. So yeah I beg to differ about the part that I don't need a Li battery.

Originally Posted by shankarbn

If the bike does not start with a new battery, that's when you start checking the rest of the electrical bits and bobs.

Again, precisely what I posted in the post before.

Originally Posted by shankarbn

When you do check the starter and RR unit, please do yourself a favour - replace cables and check for corrosion in connection points before you throw away money on brand new parts you may not need.

That is a good point, which will be done nonetheless. When you get into preventative maintenance, you tend to keep yourself on your toes concerning components that are known to wear relatively quicker in certain vehicles. Also considering mine being a 11 year old bike and has considerable mileage under its belt nothing wrong with having parts ready(not specifically RR or Stator, I'm talking in a more general sense) when you need them rather than running pillar to post for a bike that has little to no manufacturer support for spare parts. You'd understand why I say this based on my experience so far that's been laid out in this thread.

Cheer
Krishna

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

All is not well with the R1.

This started to give me signs that probably the battery is not able to handle load but it is still retaining charge.
Cheers
Krishna

Oh Boy!!
I have had this issue with my R1 intermittently ever since I got it. The R1 is just very hard on batteries especially in winters. Winters in north can get very cold and the last 2 winters have been a bit of an exercise on some occasions with my R1.

I might have something exciting to share on the battery front. Will wait for all the tests to come out to share with you. Will send you a DM.

CHEERS!!
Rachit

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by Rachit.K.Dogra

Oh Boy!!
I have had this issue with my R1 intermittently ever since I got it. The R1 is just very hard on batteries especially in winters. Winters in north can get very cold and the last 2 winters have been a bit of an exercise on some occasions with my R1.

I might have something exciting to share on the battery front. Will wait for all the tests to come out to share with you. Will send you a DM.

CHEERS!!
Rachit

Ah yes Rachit, I remember we had discussed this at length sometime back. But unfortunately, mine is not a temp issue. The temperature at Palakkad here is hitting 39 degrees already and it's not even Summers officially.

But yeah. Let's talk about the battery front outside the thread.

Cheers
Krishna

[SnS_12]

Mr. Blue and Red R1 please discuss your findings on this thread itself so the future prospective buyers can learn a thing or two as well

[shankarbn]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

Well, Not sure you read the post in its entirety. The replacement battery I bought from BS has a higher CCA than the Varta battery the bike currently has.

Oh yeah I hear you. What I meant is to check whether some of that 190A would be stolen by corrosion or bad cables or something else along the way - suggesting a much higher CCA battery based on others' experiences with similar age R1 based on bike specific degradation.

On my tiger 1050, the starter to battery and earth cables are too flimsy from factory. Doesn't affect anything until after 5-10 years when there's a tiny bit of corrosion or age that ensures battery amps aren't carried all the way through - results of course are predictable : dead battery first, starter carbon next and starter gears after. All easily preventable by swapping uprated cables. You'd never know this if all you keep doing is swapping a new battery every 2-3 years when it dies after checking voltage. As a general rule in my experience a good battery in a bike that runs regularly (2-3 rides a month is regular enough) should ideally last 4 years minimum. Funnily, the first symptom we notice on Triumph tiger bikes is a "no start while hot" issue. The usual culprit ends up being a starter motor which as you know is unnecessarily expensive especially since it doesn't get rid of the root cause being crappy(cheap) cables.

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by SnS_12

Mr. Blue and Red R1 please discuss your findings on this thread itself so the future prospective buyers can learn a thing or two as well

Let's wait for him to finish his tests.

Originally Posted by shankarbn

Oh yeah I hear you. What I meant is to check whether some of that 190A would be stolen by corrosion or bad cables or something else along the way - suggesting a much higher CCA battery based on others' experiences with similar age R1 based on bike specific degradation.

The cables are in good shape. No corrosion on the end plates or the cable as such.

Originally Posted by shankarbn

On my tiger 1050, the starter to battery and earth cables are too flimsy from factory. Doesn't affect anything until after 5-10 years when there's a tiny bit of corrosion or age that ensures battery amps aren't carried all the way through - results of course are predictable : dead battery first, starter carbon next and starter gears after. All easily preventable by swapping uprated cables. You'd never know this if all you keep doing is swapping a new battery every 2-3 years when it dies after checking voltage. As a general rule in my experience a good battery in a bike that runs regularly (2-3 rides a month is regular enough) should ideally last 4 years minimum.

I do get what you are saying and I am doing the same as I mentioned in the first post about this. Voltmeter readouts are the first step to simply assess the health of the battery and to see what is happening when load is applied to it. Rest assured I am not simply replacing batteries calling it a day, the hunt for the root cause is still ongoing. I'll be posting about it once I have the full picture.

Originally Posted by shankarbn

Funnily, the first symptom we notice on Triumph tiger bikes is a "no start while hot" issue. The usual culprit ends up being a starter motor which as you know is unnecessarily expensive especially since it doesn't get rid of the root cause being crappy(cheap) cables.

And about the "no start while hot" issue on triumphs, I have heard the same from quite a few triumph owners, luckily hadn't faced it when I had the Tiger 800.


Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

A few updates.

So let me pick up from where I left off. The new battery arrives. And I get to fixing it up and post-fitting I try to do a startup and much to my dismay the bike more or less behaved the same.

Yup, so it was not just the battery after all. I say not "just" the battery because now the battery can take the load much better and the meter console is not switching off on load. Anyways. Took a few videos replicating the tests that were done before with the old battery as well. And the results were different for sure but the root cause remained the same.

Voltage shown with the BS battery before start-up


Here is the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFEiLVwAXkc

The bike refuses to start, but the bike does crank without much load issues, it is only after a couple of attempts the starter seems to be having an issue of not getting enough juice.

Once I do get the bike to start the charging volts all seem to be satisfactory and no issues at all in that.

Volts while checking for the charging volts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32FrepC6DWE

Then on the advice of Karthick, I take the bike out for a short 14-20 km ride and check the voltages again. The voltages seem to be just fine on idle it has 12.6 v

Here is a video of how the root problem still remains with the new battery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLqgFYopuO8

P.S Don't mind the video orientation going upside down mid-way.

But during all this I notice something. Once I get the bike going from a cold start then all subsequent starts happen easily without any issues at almost half crank itself. But I wasn't sure if this was a fluke or if it is repeating like this. So I decided to do a series of tests again.

So I repeat the test for a short ride and it behaves the same. On the first cold start of the bike, it takes multiple attempts before the bike finally cranks up, on average 3-4 attempts, and once the bike gets going and is ridden for some km, I can safely switch off the bike and switch it on again and it starts in half a crank no problems whatsoever.

By this time I had also a Bangalore ride coming up and I was debating whether to ride the bike to Bangalore in this condition or not. Considering there is a possibility of me getting stuck with the bike not being able to crank at all. So on the council of a few experts, I decided to make the ride to Bangalore anyway, I kept my jump pack with me as insurance just in case I was not able to get the bike started or by jump-starting the bike in gear this could save me. But I decided I won't be testing my luck too much and for the entire 500kms journey, I'll only stop twice for fueling once at Coimbatore and once at Salem, so that the stop will be only in proper fuel bunks where in case I do get stuck help will be easier to find. And I can work on the bike in a safer environment too, as opposed to somewhere in the side of the road along the highway which could prove dangerous.

So I plan on starting my ride early in the morning and yes, you guessed it, the bike doesn't want to start, but as expected by around the 3rd or 4th attempt I get the bike to start. And I set on with my trip, I stopped for fuel at Coimbatore, and post fueling I toggle the key and press the starter button with my fingers crossed and the bike starts up with just half a crank itself. I proceed to gear up and continue my ride, the ride is going absolutely fine and I stop at Salem again to refuel(This is just a precautionary fuel up because finding an XP95 bunk post Krishnagiri till Hosur or Bangalore is a bit of a pain without having to navigate those long blocked off service road situation) and the bike behaves the same at Salem too. Starts up back at half a crank.

Finally, I reach my flat without any drama and I park the bike in my parking. initially, the plan was to take the bike to Highlander once I was a bit rested but later on, after talking to another friend who suggested checking if it's a fuel pressure issue the first startup isn't happening without a struggle. So I thought I'd do one more test and I toggle the fuel pump on a few times before attempting a crank just to test this theory. So I leave the bike in my parking till around 9 pm, that's about 12 hours of cool time so the engine is dead cold. And the same behavior, the bike cranks but can't get the bike to start.

Not having enough I try to test this theory once more but this time by riding around in Bangalore city for a change with a bit more testing. So the next day early morning I went to start and the bike didn't start, Finally got the bike to start on 4th attempt or so and it finally started, and I rode around a bit with @Xaos636 and putter around, and stopped for a cup of coffee within the city and give the bike about 30 minutes break and tried starting it up again and as expected the bike starts up in half a crank, then we repeat the test again but this time leave the bike off for 4 hours or so and tried again and yet again the bike starts up with half a crank.

Puttering around Bangalore with Xaos636 for some city testing

So finally I think now one pattern is clear, it's not just the battery, because between the old Varta (with a bulge on the battery case) and the brand new BS battery, the bike is getting more steady juice and we have ruled out the battery charging system because the bike ran approx 550 km and the volt on a cold battery is still 12.6 and has plenty of charge left. So that's also cleared up, so no need to change the RR or Stator coil just yet. But yeah the pattern has finally emerged, that is, cold start is an issue, takes about 3-4 attempts to get it going and once the bike is properly running temps the bike has no problem starting up till the engine is dead cold again which takes a good 7-8 hours(at the minimum) or so after being parked up.

So finally with all this clear info at hand, I rode the bike to Highlander.

Briefed Karthick on all the points and he also seemed to agree, that the starter motor is the first place to check, and possibly the one-way clutch too, since it is also very much part of the starting system of the bike. So I already had the rebuild kit for the starter motor with me which I gave him and I also had the clutch side case gasket which will need to be replaced in case he wanted to check the health of the one-way clutch.

Carbon brush kit (Part no: 4C8-81801-01-00)


Clutch side gasket (Part no: 14B-15461-00-00)

So I gave Karthick both these parts and I returned to Kerala. Oh btw, All this is from last week.

So finally yesterday night I got a set of photos from Karthick, and the problem is pretty much clear, the start motor armature is pretty burnt up and the carbon brush is partially stuck in place.

I'll try and take some better-quality pics once I have the old starter with me in person. These photos very just sent to me for situation update purposes.

This puts me in a tricky situation the starter right now is not refurbishable in this state since the armature is pretty burnt up so the rebuild kit I have in hand right now is of no use currently. Now I have to go and try to find a brand new Starter motor assembly for the bike. Hopefully, I'll be able to get one soon because until then the bike is very much out of commission. That's the latest on the R1, will keep this space updated as and when the news turns up.

Cheers
Krishna

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

So I repeat the test for a short ride and it behaves the same. On the first cold start of the bike, it takes multiple attempts before the bike finally cranks up, on average 3-4 attempts, and once the bike gets going and is ridden for some km, I can safely switch off the bike and switch it on again and it starts in half a crank no problems whatsoever.

Well, this pretty much has been my story as well. In my case, this becomes a bigger problem in winters. We still don't know if lower temperatures make R1 harder to start or batteries slightly loose their ability to retain charge or a combination of both. But this issue has bothered us quite a bit during last 2 winters.

We now have moved to a Lithium Battery and really hoping this fixes it for me.

Best of Luck!!
Rachit

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by Rachit.K.Dogra

Well, this pretty much has been my story as well. In my case, this becomes a bigger problem in winters. We still don't know if lower temperatures make R1 harder to start or batteries slightly loose their ability to retain charge or a combination of both. But this issue has bothered us quite a bit during last 2 winters.

We now have moved to a Lithium Battery and really hoping this fixes it for me.

Best of Luck!!
Rachit

That's 2 different things Rachit, extreme cold conditions are naturally taxing on the batteries, but for me, the same outcome was caused by the armature burning and the 2 out of the 4 carbon brushes wearing out unevenly even(I'll post much more detailed photos when I get the old starter motor in my hands). And yes in the cold getting enough juice to get it started is a pain. We never have to encounter that situation down South because as you know we never get that harsh of winters at all. While Li batteries don't do too well in extreme cold conditions double-digit minus degree types, they do exceptionally well in any other situations

But yeah Li battery will give you a trouble-free experience for a long long time like I had when I had the Shorai Li battery, alas, like we already discussed, getting it here anymore has become a daunting task, to say the least.

Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

Update

So in the last post I was looking at having to procure a brand new starter motor for the R1, and luckily enough I was able to find one almost immediately in stock in India and I placed an order for it, which cost me an eye-watering 33k, but in the grand scheme of things for a generation of R1 that's known to chew through starter motors every few years, mine last for over 11 years and 41k worth of startup so I'd say not bad. And this is the single highest expense I have incurred to date in the 4 years plus of ownership of the R1. So in that sense, it's all good.

The order was placed on 3rd March and the Part arrived in hand on 6th March.

The part was handed over to Karthick and he set on fixing the new starter motor into the bike and everything was buttoned back up. Post which he updated me that now the bike is cranking and starting up on the first crank just as it should be.

Since I was out of town the bike was stored in Highlander till about 12 th when I was able to go and collect it, which gave Karthick a few days to check the cold start of the bike and make sure everything was in order, I also had a few odd jobs to be done as I had a ride coming up in coming days and all of those was promptly completed.

Here is the brand-new starter motor (Part no: 14B-81890-00-00) that was installed.

And here is a video of the first start on a cold engine when I went to collect the bike from Highlander

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI14xUU6jY8

P.S: The metallic lucky sound you hear on startup is occasionally the hydraulic cam chain tensioner making the sound as it hasn't had oil run through it yet. Happens when the bike has been sitting for a few days without much running. Triumph owners in particular will be very well accustomed to this sound.

Post this went & filled up the R1 with a full tank of XP100 as the coming day was to be the start of a 3-day ride with the R1. Talk about Baptism by Fire for the new starter motor.

Cheers
Krishna

[SVS_23]

@krishnaprasadgg spotted your R1 at Highlander today!

[krishnaprasadgg]

It looks like I hit a bit of a lazy bout there, it's been over 2 months since the last post and a lot has happened since then, the last post too was just before I set on a 3-day ride with a few close riding buddies of mine, which includes 2(Xaos636 and wolfy) bhpians too.

I'll be splitting the ride snippets across multiple posts, because of the 30 photos per post limit.

So the trip was conceived as a 3-day supersport-only ride. The original lineup was meant to be the Kawasaki ZX10R, Yamaha R1, Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade, Ducati Panigale V2 Bayliss Edition, and Triumph Daytona 675R but a last-minute unexpected hiccup meant that one of us in the group couldn't get their supersport and the Daytona had to be replaced with a sexy Ducati Monster 1200S.

So our Day 01 itinerary looked something like this: Bengaluru > Hassan > Belur > Devaramane > Kottigehara > Balehonnur > Koppa

I started my ride at around 4 am from HSR and our common meetup point was the ParleG factory toll near IKEA. We had planned to start the ride pretty early to get a head start on traffic and to hopefully limit the amount we will have to ride in the scorching heat too.

Once we had all assembled at the meetup point, and had 5 mins of going over the plan for day 1 we headed out, we had agreed to hold a slower pace till the sun went up.

We rode for about 2-2.5 hours with just 1 break for a few photos before stopping for breakfast at a place called Harsha Grand along the Hassan route. Pretty clean place with good food and plenty of parking spot as well.


We took our sweet time to line up all the bikes along the parking area as we had the place almost fully to ourselves.

Then post a heavy breakfast we were on our way again. After about 1 more hour of riding me and Ajay decided to swap bikes, He took over the R1 while I swung my leg over the gorgeous Panigale V2 and this was the limited edition Bayliss edition with a ton of extra CF goodies and also a beautiful sounding Arrow slip-on exhaust system with a UPMAP tune to go with it(The V2 slipons has the caton integrated into the muffler, so even though it's just a slip on change a tune is highly recommended)

This was my first time on a Panigale V2, having ridden the Panigale V4 before while I was familiar with Ducatis I took it very slowly because every bike is different and it takes a bit of riding before you fully understand how the bike will behave with respect to Throttle response, braking feedback and just overall balance itself.

And to say a few words about the V2, compact is the word to use, it's so light and nimble its a shock to the system when jumping on it from the R1, there is a ton of grunt from the twin-cylinder motor but coming from a liter class its not overwhelming but still demands a ton of respect from the rider.

While the rest of the group had pushed ahead, Ajay and I took it a bit slow as we wanted to get some photos of the bikes. The result of which is what you saw above.

About 30 minutes later we continued our trip and caught up with the group at a previously agreed upon point at a petrol bunk on Hassan highway. With all our bikes refueled and a 5-minute hydration and back stretching brake for us we started pushing on.

It had already been a couple of hours of riding under the hot sun and the effect was showing, so we decided to have more frequent hydration breaks and this time stopped at a tender coconut place on the roadside. The heat was so bad each of us took at least 2-3 tender coconut water before we were called off enough to carry on with the ride. You'll find from the pics that we took a ton of breaks like this to keep us well-hydrated and alert.

Oh the R1 was doing perfectly well post the starter motor replacement, 0 issues so far.

From there on the ride was pretty uneventful with just regular breaks and did not take many photos till we were near Devaramane, there is a viewpoint here, and getting to the viewpoint takes us through some remote but really good roads on the way up and some sketchy roads on the way down(we chose to take a different route the way down). I'll post photos of this in the next post as I am almost at the limit on this post.

Contd..

[krishnaprasadgg]

Day 1 contd..

The climb to Devaramane viewpoint was fully isolated we did not have anyone else pass us going up or down till we reached the top were a few people had already reached there prior to us.

We took this opportunity to take some awesome photos while 2 of us were on watch duty to make sure we didn't cause any obstruction to others who would be passing by, but like I mentioned the place was completely deserted and no one passed by at all.

Once we reached the top entry of the viewpoint, all of us were fully drained as the photo session under the scorching sun took a toll on all of us.

But Ajay and wolfy took it upon themselves to go and do the small trek to the actual viewpoint while the rest 3 of us took to the shade to rest up and recover before the journey ahead of us to our accommodation at Koppa which was still a couple of hours away.

On the ride down we chose to take a different route as it was said to be the easier route to join back to the highways but what we didn't know was the roads weren't in good shape and with the already riding heat and how spent we were it was a tough one but we made it in one piece and as soon as we hit the next main village junction we stopped for refreshments and spent about 3-40 minutes cooling ourselves and the bikes down.

Post this it was a straight dash for us toward our homestay at Koppa. It was decided that we would have a late lunch from the homestay instead of adding more long breaks to our ride, but even then the home stretch we had to stop 2-3 times for hydration breaks. It was that hot and riding on these machines that heat up a bunch definitely didn't help.

Finally, after what seemed ages, we reached our homestay and parked our bikes outside our cottage, which was lovely, to say the least, and the cheery on top was being able to see all the bikes lined up right in front of the cottage.

This brings an end to day 1 of the ride. We had some heavy lunch and dinner and hours of pure bike talk post which we had some good sleep as we had a long day ahead of us for day 2.

Customary ODO and Trip meter pic at the end of Day 1

Cheers
Krishna

[krishnaprasadgg]

Day 2

Here is what was the planned itinerary for day 2:Koppa > Thadasa Old Bridge > Muduba Tunga River Bridge > Mandagadde > Sakrebyle Elephant Camp > Thirthahalli > Kuppalli > Koppa

While Day 1 was a bit hectic we did not have the chance to fuel up before day 2 so the first line of business post a heavy breakfast of course was to find a good XP95 bunk and refuel, luckily enough we had one just 3 km away from where we were staying which saved us as all of us were running on reserve. Unfortunately one among us had developed a cold/migraine on day 1 so he had to sit out day 2 in hopes of recovering for the ride back home.

So 4 of us rolled into Koppa town and into the petrol bunk together and caused a mini commotion to say the least, It was a bit chaotic as there were a ton of people at the bunk who were there to fill up their vehicles before heading out to work too, so did not take any photos between all this commotion apart from one which was post refueling.

Post refueling we started heading towards our first destination of the day that was the Badhra Reservoir, which was pretty empty in the scorching heat and were hopeful we would be able to take the bikes down to the reservoir bed. Which of course involved a bit of soft roading/offroading but we took it in stride, as the saying goes tough roads lead to beautiful destinations, which turned out to be true.

Enjoy a few photos of the time we spent at the reservoir, we were very careful in how we spent time there and made sure not to make a commotion and not to disturb the cattle around too. Wherever possible we rolled the bikes around instead of turning them on and riding them.

day 2 post continued in next post as I have hit the photo limit for this post

[krishnaprasadgg]

Day 2 contd

After spending time at the Bhadra reservoir we headed back to the main road to move to our next location at Shivmoga (Sakrebyle Elephant Camp).

We managed to click a few photos of the path that we had to negotiate to the reservoir, to document the softroading/offroading we had to do on these supersport bikes.

Moving on while heat made sure we did not have the energy to spend time at the Elephant camp, we just stopped for a small snack break and continued back to Koppa with another destination in between in mind.

Oh and in between all this the R1 hits 42k on the ODO

We stopped for lunch at a hotel called Hotel Devi Krupa at Devangi, between Thirthahalli and Koppa, this place came recommended to us by a few other friends, it is a family-run small restaurant, and had some fish curry meals and it was epic, to say the least.

You can read more about the hotel here

Post which I jumped back onto the V2 again, after brief stints on the Blade, 10R, and R1.

The rest of the day was just filled with negotiating tons of corners so we didn't do much of stopping for taking pics.

Made it back to Koppa home stay around 7 pm or so.

Customary ODO pic at the end of the day.

Day 3 will be covered in the next post.

Cheers
Krishna