mr72's '92 project - "Renegade"

[ajensen]

Good looking rack--goes well with the lines of the bike.

[mr72]

Thanks. I am very pleased with the rack. Makes the tail bag far more usable.

Since it's going to rain this weekend I'll be doing the oil leak repair tomorrow. I got side tracked on the bike projects because I had to work out some problems with my Jeep suspension instead and then had back to back weeks with conference/trade-shows for work and had literally zero spare time. Will be nice to get my hands dirty on it this week, hopefully fix the oil leaks once and for all.

I miss riding frequently but it's been high temps at or above 100 deg F in Austin for the past two weeks which sounds like a horrible time on a motorcycle.

[mr72]

So...

Christmas.

Some updates.

- back in October the bike began to fail to start, acting like the battery was dead, pretty much most of the time. Worked fine as long as I charged it with plug-in charger overnight, but after starting and riding (any distance) it would either not start or barely crank and get lucky. Autozone tested and told me the battery was bad (it was an AGM Scorpion of stock size). So I decided to try something new and bought a way undersized LiFePO4 battery, this one a 2aH and I think the stock battery is 8-10aH. Anyway, worked fine until it turned a little bit cold. It was always just a little bit finicky starting if it was under about 80F, causing me to have to turn on the key (and lights etc.) for 30-60 seconds before it'd crank. Bear in mind I have all LED lights, so this really wasn't drawing much current. I discovered that if it's under 50F the battery simply will not start the bike no matter what, and under 60F takes a big drawn out dance of turn on the key/lights, try and crank a little, put the bike in gear and sort of force the starter to turn (and presumably the alt) by rocking it back and forth and popping the clutch sitting still, try to crank, etc. etc. until usually it'll finally start. One time I had to jump it with a jump pack which I began carrying all the time. This battery was very expensive for what it is (more than a typical AGM) and I finally had enough and contacted the company who sold it to me asking for a refund. I have probably ridden the bike no more than 5-6 times since I bought this battery and more than half the time it's failed to correctly start the bike and twice now it's failed to start it at all. We'll see if they'll take it back.

- After nearly a year with my Motocentric tail bag, which is a Cortech knock off (identical in every way except the label), I finally swapped it for a scooter-type top case, which was a Christmas gift. I have high hopes the top case will be more to my liking because it'll hold more stuff, it has at least a rudimentary lock, and it's easily removed when not needed. Given that I use my bike to ride to work or to run errands often, I need some storage in there. Again, even though I use the motorcycle for recreation, I try to multitask and make the trip to the grocery store sort of a dual purpose recreation time rather than plain drudgery. I'll miss the lateral expandability of the tail bag which allowed me to put a 12 pack of Coke Zero in there. But other than that the top box is over 2x as big.

- Another Christmas gift I got this year is a battery tender for Lithium batteries. Why, you might ask? See the first item. I guess there's a chance I will be stuck with this LiFePO4 battery and I'll have to find a way to make it work, and a battery tender is probably minimally required. But I still think temp kills these batteries no matter what. I mean, right after mine failed to start the bike, the battery tender told me it was fully charged. So it can be fully charged and simultaneously not able to deliver enough current to turn the starter at all. Lovely. Well, I think this battery tender will work with an AGM battery too and I do like having the ability to hook up the charger without pulling off the seat. For that matter I might be able to hook my jump pack to the battery tender terminal and make the bike usable even if I am stuck with the LiFePO4 batt. Good news is, it's rarely winter in CenTX. Sub-50F is very rare.

[cbrfxr67]

Thanks for this info.  I was thinking of getting something like your LiFePO4 and being in Houston, with almost year round riding temps, I appreciate you posting your experiences.  Definitely won't be buying that battery.  Too annoying,....

[mr72]

Thanks for this info.  I was thinking of getting something like your LiFePO4 and being in Houston, with almost year round riding temps, I appreciate you posting your experiences.  Definitely won't be buying that battery.  Too annoying,....

Yeah I think you have basically the same weather as we do here in the ATX area, although you get a lot more rain and we get a couple days more freezing. I would think Houston would be great year-round riding as long as your calendar doesn't have July and August on it.

If it's below 60F then this LiFePO4 battery is a hassle to start the bike and below 50F it basically won't reliably start a GS500. It might work fine on a 125cc bike with 8:1 compression or a fuel-injected SV650 with a fuel pump to help warm the battery, who knows. But given the vacuum petcock, carburetors, choke-start dance, etc. you might have a little bit of longer cranking required to start a GS500 cold vs. a FI bike and a LiFePO4 is just the wrong technology for that. Of course you could probably put a 10aH battery in there and get it to work better but that's like a $200+ battery on a $1000 motorcycle, and it's not much lighter or smaller than a 6aH AGM which will work 100%.

That said, of these jokers won't take this battery back, I might just find a way to mount it way in the back of my Jeep to give extra local current to run things like my air compressor. For that matter I might make it portable along with the compressor so I can pump tires remotely. Jeep has big tires. I have a big compressor that wants to be hooked straight to the car battery. Plus this little LiFePO4 batt might run the inverter quite well. It just sucks for starting a cold motorcycle.

[qcbaker]

I wouldn't think of below 50F as "cold"... My bike has a battery basically identical to the stock one and cranks nice and hard even when its around 20F here. Maybe there's something wrong with the battery you got. Have you looked any reviews for that battery and has anyone reported similar issues?

[mr72]

Yeah everyone reports similar issues starting motorcycles with LiFePO4 batteries. They seem to have extraordinarily poor performance when cold. On the adventure rider forums this is common talk with guys using things like heated grips to help "wake up" the battery, especially since apparently many KTMs come from the factory with these batteries and the bikes don't have enough space to accommodate a traditional SLA or AGM battery, and of course KTMs are common among the adventure crowd.

I shipped the battery back yesterday and Amazon gave me a refund for the exorbitant $76 I paid for it. I had high hopes. I guess nothing ventured, nothing gained. In this case it only cost me some frustration and I learned something I ordered a replacement pretty much identical to the one I had before (Scorpion, I confirm, YT10L-A2 AGM), for a bit more than half the price of the LiFePO4.

Now I have to go undo some of my mods that I did that moved relays and the igniter into the battery tray since I am putting a huge battery back in. I'm gonna put the Scorpion battery back in since I know it'll at least start the bike 1-2 times on a full charge and now I have a (very expensive Lithium-type) battery tender so I can keep it full and at least use the bike to run to the grocery store while I am waiting on the new battery to arrive. First world problems y'all!

[mr72]

Here's a little more charging/battery information.

The GS500's charging system in peak condition will output up to 14.4-14.6 volts DC while the bike is running. Given the age of components, resistance in connectors and oxidized wiring can reduce this voltage substantially, not to mention wear in the stator etc. I would generally consider >14V to be healthy for a GS500 charging system.

A LiFePO4 battery has nominally 3.2V per cell so a four-cell battery (or 8 or 12 etc.) will make 12.8V nominally when charged fully. To charge the cells to 95% requires a 14V charging voltage, evenly distributed. To get 100% charge requires 14.6 volts. What this means is to get a LiFePO4 battery to charge in a GS500, you have to have the charging system operating in pretty much perfect condition all the time.

An AGM battery, like the Scorpion I had previously, is quite happy charging at 13.8v or above. It will "fast charge" with up to 14.6 volts. An average, functional GS500 charging system with ~14.0V to 14.4V which is common for one in a good state of tune will fully charge an AGM battery.

So the conclusion here is, even when discounting the temperature problems that I ran into, a LiFePO4 battery is not really compatible with a GS500 anyway because the minimum charging requirements are on the margin for what a GS500 can produce, while an AGM battery can easily be charged by the bulk of GS500 functioning charging systems.

IMHO of course.

I really like the idea of a much smaller, lighter battery. I like much more the idea of a motorcycle that'll start.

[cbrfxr67]

more good info!  applause!

[qcbaker]

Very good info, thanks for posting this. Hopefully someone considering a battery upgrade sees this and gets steered in the right direction.

[yamahonkawazuki]

Very good info, thanks for posting this. Hopefully someone considering a battery upgrade sees this and gets steered in the right direction.

indeed.
Aaron

[mr72]

To add insult to injury, once I got the battery situation all sorted, the starter went belly up. Makes me wonder if the bad battery situation led to the starter failure. I mean, if the battery cannot deliver enough current to turn the starter, then perhaps when it's stuck it leads to excess heat and oxidation in the brushes and armature. Anyway, I sanded the oxidation off of the brushes and armature, cleaned the armature gaps with the edge of a piece of plastic blister packaging that was laying around the garage and cleaned everything with compressed air and a rag, put it back together and bingo the starter is now back to 100%.

What a relief for it to be working correctly.

I was seriously tempted to buy a new motorcycle rather than hassle with these (minor) electrical issues. Guess I'm a flake. I actually just really kind of want a new bike.

Speaking of flake, I discovered the paint on the side plastics in one spot is heavily peeling/flaking. Yeah, I painted that. Guess I need to revisit it, again. At least the paint is easy to get. I needed to touch up the tank anyway.

[ajensen]

Whatever you do regarding a new bike, keep the GS500 and stay on this forum. You provide such valuable insights.

[qcbaker]

Ducati scrambler is calling your name. And then you can join Watcher as a member of the Ducatisti and scoff at us plebs.

[mr72]

Ducati scrambler is calling your name. And then you can join Watcher as a member of the Ducatisti and scoff at us plebs.

I'm quite tempted. If I didn't have a lot of college debt (for my kids) to pay off I'd be all over it. Who knows, my company IPOd in November, maybe my stock options will skyrocket and I can peel off a little extra to pick up a Duc.

Truth is, I watch CL weekly. If one pops up under 2K miles in the under-$7K range (which is a definite steal), then I'm going to jump on it. But I'm not ready to cough up $10K for a new one.

[mr72]

Whatever you do regarding a new bike, keep the GS500 and stay on this forum. You provide such valuable insights.

Thanks for that! I can't imagine there's any good reason to get rid of the GS500. I mean, it works most of the time, it'd provide a good backup in case whatever else I have is in repair and it's worth more to me than what I could sell it for. Plus, it's easy to repair and parts are cheap.

[mr72]

After many months and thousands of miles of trouble-free riding, I got bored and decided to put the GS under the knife again.

First, I finally fixed properly the tank-to-frame bracket. IDK how this is supposed to work bone stock but mine was a mess and constantly came apart. Plus the rubber gasket thing on the front where the tank rests was falling apart. So I glued the tank rubber gasket thing with Gorilla Glue, redesigned the tank bracket connection and installed hardware combination that works well and finally got that working correctly.

While I was fooling with that I took off the side/rear plastics and I decided I prefer that look and need to do something to make it work.

There really are three problem areas for appearance with the side plastics off:
1. the gap between the lower edge of the seat and the frame all around exposes wires and other unsightly stuff that I'd prefer to be at least mostly hidden
2. need to cover up the starter relay, igniter and regulator rectifier (to keep a pillion from getting a burn)
3. there is a big gap between the back edge of the seat and the tail light, plus if you take off the little "nerf bars" on the back then the tail light mount goes away

To solve #1 I plan to craft a cover from some black powder coated expanded metal (steel) mesh that is amazingly available and cheap at Home Depot sold for gutter leaf guards in about 36" x 8" size for $3 each. I bought two pieces and I'm building cardboard templates and then will cut it with snips, bend it, and use black vinyl door edge guard around the edges. I think this will look good, retaining kind of the "super naked" look I'm going for while somewhat hiding the wiring etc. under the seat.

For #2 I am going to make vintage-racer type oval number plates from ABS plastic, paint them the same dark silver that I used for the wheels and headlight bucket, and again put vinyl door edge guard around the edge as trim. I'll actually put some vinyl adhesive numbers on there. Oh, and I am going to leave the reg/rect in the same place where it is and make sure it's covered by the mesh side covers.

For #3, well I decided to relocate the tail light altogether. I cut down a pair of 90-deg steel corner braces and re-mounted the tail light using the holes from the grab-bar handle. The tail light now extends only about an inch beyond the grab-bar frame bracket. Then I had to do something about the rear fender. I removed it, cut the squared-off portion where the license plate mounts off, and then did some other mods to reshape what was the front edge so it's symmetric and then flipped the fender. I painted it the same satin black as the front fender (I can't get used to saying "mud guard") and then mounted it back up again but using a 15mm spacer so it's a little lower than before. I attached the license plate bracket to the new rear of the fender. Going to put the same door edge guard around it. I actually drilled holes and mounted the turn signals (miniature LED ones) to the sides of the fender. I'll post pics soon. This aligns the license plate with the lamp on the bottom of the tail light and removes a lot of bulk from the tail's appearance.

I also had to deal with my rack and top case, since I depend on it. I used the same mounting bolt holes from the grab bar mount that hold the tail light now to put some sort of fabricated mounts and I will add a brace so basically the plastic base of the top box (it's one that's removable from the base) sits essentially flush/flat with the rear of the seat abut 2" above the tail light. I think this will work to keep the brake light visible and also make the rear rack (no case) much lower profile than it was before (was mounted atop the grab bar).

So I have this whole job about 50% done. I need to fab up the side mesh panels and the number plates, will do that over the weekend. Need to figure out how to mount the side mesh panels and number plates but it should be easy enough using the nerf bar mount along with some of the previous side plastic holes and I'll pop-rivet a bracket here or there if I need to. Should have the whole job done by the end of the weekend and have it all together.

Provided this all goes well, next up on the project list will be to repaint the engine, hopefully with it in place, just masking (or even brush on). I think I'll use a flat file to make the fin edges silver a la Triumph.

Again, pictures and videos to come as I complete it over the weekend.

Nice to not have to repair anything. Just making it look better.

[ajensen]

I look forward to seeing the results.

[mr72]

Some in-progress pictures.

Tail light mounting detail, shows how I used the corner braces to relocate the taillight:



Reversed/modified fender with license plate and turn signals:



Rack mounted top view, connects nicely with the seat:



Rack mounted underside view, here you can see my tricks, using galvanized conduit clamps as mounting brackets:



View of tail (missing the rack diagonal support):



I will do something to fill the gap between the lower edge of the seat and the top of the taillight even though it's basically hidden by the rack and top box.

Bike's together and rideable and usable now. Will finish up the bodywork over the weekend and get more pictures.

[mr72]

OK, well it's done!

Let's see... what's interesting about this?

I made the number plates from an ABS plastic document box that I had laying around. I drew up the oval that's 7" x 8.55" on Word and printed it, then used 3M Super 77 to glue the printout to the plastic panel and cut it out with a jigsaw. Painted it with Rustoleum silver paint I had laying around and then put the vinyl door edge protector over it. Test fit the spot and drilled and tapped holes with an M5 tap and mounted it up. It has a 9 on one side and a 2 on the other.

The mesh part went pretty easy. I basically held it in the spot I wanted it and marked my cuts with a silver sharpee. Cut it with snips and bent/shaped/cut/trimmed/etc until it was the shape I wanted and then hooked it up. It's attached under the seat with zip ties and I used a 1.75" long piece of tubing as a spacer and used the nerf bar mounts on the frame with a 40mm M8 bolt on each side to hold it on.

IDK what the fashion of this is, but I really dig the look of the bike like this. I like the fact that the tall pointy tail end is gone and it has much more of a super-naked look to the rear of the bike. There is no painted side panels or fairings except the number plates f you want to count that. Minimalist. I like it a lot. And I am glad I could make this work with the stock seat.

Apologies for the messy garage pics. It's just where the bike's at.