Idle too low or faulty charging system?

[dluszcz]

I have an 86 VT1100 and I'm riding for the 1st time during cold weather. I bought some Gerbings T5 heated gloves and I'm wondering if I'm putting too much strain on my charging system.

I've noticed that at idle, all my lights and gauges dim and then get brighter as I rev up the engine. Battery is 2 months old and is a sealed battery from Advanced Auto. I haven't had a chance to do the tests to measure the volts and will do that this weekend.

I drive 75 miles each way to and from work and I put the battery tender on every night just to make sure that I have a full charge. Is that counter productive?

I've read about the MOSFET R/R and I don't really want to buy it if it is not necessary. But I'm wondering if that is a wise purchase for the sake of piece of mind since I put over 13000 miles on my bike this year. I bought her last year with only 13500 so she's barely broken in.

Any advice is welcome as I'm new to the year round riding and absolutely love it!

[finjoey]

Hopefully an electrical guru will chime in...Good Luck


Sent from my iPhone using Motorcycle.com Free App

[dluszcz]

That's what I'm hoping for. Since I'm out of the house for 15 hours a day, I have to wait til the weekend to do the tests.

[taikin]

Unless your battery is weak when restarting, I don't understand the problem. My lights have always dimmed when sitting at idle, then they brighten back up with rpm.

[dluszcz]

On Monday, it was a tough crank. Took about 2-3 seconds to get started. Didn't ride Tuesday or Wednesday. This morning, 3 cranks and she fired up. But I had to give it some gas to stay running until it was running for about 2 minutes. Then it was fine. 2-3 cranks and fired up after work. Same deal though. It was like she wanted to die for a minute or 2 then she was good for the whole 2 hr trip home. I probably don't have a problem but I'm concerned about the charging system because the lights are much dimmer when using the heated gloves.

I'm riding again tomorrow and If all goes well, even at 32 degrees, I think my tests this weekend will be normal.

[justinmahn]

Carb'ed motorcycle have always needed a few minutes to warm up in cold weather. Are you using the choke and letting it warm up for 5 minutes?

[dluszcz]

Full choke on the starts but since I'm always in a rush, I don't let it warm up any more than it takes me to buckle the helmet, attach the heated gloves, put 'em on, and ride off to sit in traffic for 2 hours.

[justinmahn]

You can ease off the choke little by little as you drive it. That should help with poor performance as you get going.

[old dad]

Considering the cold where you live, your start up sounds normal.

[jpr1968]

Mosfet R/R won't help in this situation. You could turn your idle speed up just a bit. Not so much that's it's idling too high after warm-up. To test you battery and charging circuit, warm up the bike to running temp. and check battery voltage at idle, with and without the heated gloves on. As long as it's above 12.3 to 12.5vdc your should be ok. When you are in traffic and sitting idle you may want to turn the gloves off until you are moving again. The bike needs to be above 1300-1500rpms to charge the battery. Below that more power is going into keeping the bike running.