OK - update - revived the Ulysses from lockdown. I have done the earthing mods per my previous post, so should be a good earth for the starter - VW Golf starter cable routed from frame by engine mount to battery negative.

Still the bike "dips" when starting - hit the button, hear the starter engage and turn the motor over a touch, then silence for half a second then turns over and fires. The HD battery is assumed to be original so 11 years old.

Confession time - I completely forgot Maz's advice and bought a Motobatt 16AH. Starting is just the same as with the HD battery. Doh!

In my defence, when researching batteries, Yuasa got a kicking in reviews.

Is the half-second silence on starting normal?

Thanks in advance (and sorry Maz).

A

Yes.

_________________
Mithered ta death.
92 MB
96 S2T
98 S1W
00 M2
01 X1
03 P3
10 CR

Maz,

Many thanks for that.

A

A minor snag with the Yuasa in my XB, if anyone else is thinking of fitting one, is that the terminal fixing posts are not flush with the battery sides as with the HD item. This means that you have to use a spacer to clamp the standard XB leads......then you find that standard battery bolts are too short.

As a make do fix I cut studs to length from M6 threaded bar with a nut above and below the fixing point. I could have more easily just cut down longer M6 bolts to the required length if I had found any in my many boxes of junk!

Yuasa has been working well to date, but it stays hooked to my optimiser 24/7.

Further note on the Yuasa fitted to my XB; A friend who has some experience of long term storage and battery life on his bikes commented that it was not good to leave his ‘Optimate’ plugged into one bike and it’s battery continuously for long periods. He preferred to rotate his charger around his stable of bikes.

Lucky for those who have the space and resources to sustain a stable of bikes. However I have the more expensive Oxford ‘Oximiser’ or ‘Optimiser’, which is not the latest 3X intelligent model of optimiser, but does claim to be safe for long term connection.

Whatever, my YTX14 battery took an age to ‘optimise’ or ‘oximise’ when new spending much longer still showing 0.15 amps on the optimiser display until fully charged. More recently having been ridden or otherwise being off the charger the battery charges for a shorter period before returning to 0 amps being drawn with 13 to 13.1 V and the ‘strong’ signal being illuminated. There has been a noticeable variation in the behaviour of the three batteries I’ve had in the XB. I guess it’s just the luck of the draw when you buy a battery, but it’s difficult to be sure unless you religiously keep notes on use and battery conditioner connection times.