Viper Battery problems

D

downchild21

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Jan 10, 2009
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56
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nb
Hello,

I have an 02 Viper that has an intermittent battery problem. The battery is new. It works good for a few trips out then,while out travelling ,i'll go to start it and the battery will be dead.The battery will not charge during riding. Manula start and everything is OK. If I take it out and charge it , it will be OK for a couple of weeks and then die while I am out on a trail. I have checked the harness for rub through and it is OK. The only other thing I notice is the hand / thumb warmers are not nearly as warm as the ones on my other viper.

Did some more checking...charged the battery ( new and OK ) and went out for the day. The battery is dead after one day of riding. Handwarmers / thumb warmers are not working, if they are they are barely working.

I took a meter and did the following checks..I get approx. 7.5 volts at 3500 rpm's at the connector on the steering column. The switch works and sweeps to 0. The thumb warmer has 9 volts at 3500 rpm and the switch does not turn it off. It stays at the same voltage regardless.

Not sure what to do next..could it be a bad connection rubbing through on the handle bars causes the battery to drain and malfunction both the thumb and grip warmers or do I have a bigger problem like CDI / Stator?

All lights / speedo are 100%

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance
 
check at battery and see if you get 12volts+ when running increast with rpm, if you dont then your voltage reg/rec may be bad. i dont know specs to check charge coil in stator but that is ac going into reg/rec dc coming out, with motor off disconnect warmers and check all wires to ground on warmer side should show no connection ,if it shows connection with all the wires disconected warmers are shorted to ground, remember you check one wire at a time to ground, then you can check wires to each warmer there should be continuity between them but not ground unless warmer wires use bars as ground but that is unlikely then you would need ground links everywhere
 
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Thanks for the replies, much appreciated...I think I understand...if I check the thumb warmer wires / grip warmer wires to ground , so that is both wires for each warner out of the connector , 4 wires total , none of them should have a ground reading ?

I'll check the battery voltage again. Given the battery drained from driving , when I start the sled by hand I get 9.3 volts at the battery.

The speedo , lights seam fine to me. The back up alarm sounds weak.

The only other thing I noticed that might be an issue is the heated visor cable is wired in line with the grip warmers...should I remove that connection ?

I have another 02 viper and the visor plug is wired to the battery directly....any thoughts??

Thanks again
 
correct no ground on wires going to warmers, does voltage rise on battery with rpm? check fuses in electric start circuit by starter relay and smoothing condenser
 
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Is the electric start unit the fuse box with 4-5 fuses? The ignition fuse blew a few weeks ago.
 
i dont have that sled, so i dont know where it is, i am looking at tech page of scamatic its no 5 it shows it by starter relay and if that fuse blows it will not charge battery,another thing that would drain battery is smoothing condenser if it bad
 
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hay you have two identicle sleds, do like techs do today, swap parts until you find what part makes it better or you can take readings from one and check against other to find bad part, its faster but more expensive with electric parts doing swap if you fry two lol. doing readings is better just takes longer
 
OK...I tried a few more things...I put both sleds side by side and started them. They get identical voltage readings going into the warmers. Also checked for shorts - tested OK. I noticed that the leads for the one I am having trouble with had its leads reversed so I changed them. They must have been switched when the previous owner wired in a shield. I also swapped CDI's. Thought I fixed the problem.

I charged the " new" battery and went out for the day...the warmers have a very small amount of heat. By the end of the day , the battery was near dead , head light seemed dim , speedo, brake light etc worked fine. I must have a drain somewhere and not sure what to change next...does this sound like a stator issue or do I need new warmers ?
 
start both sleds and check at battery whats the voltage at idle and increase rpm and wire sheild to battery take it off warmer circuit
 
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downchild21 said:
, when I start the sled by hand I get 9.3 volts at the battery.

You should have over 12.9 volts at the battery, even at idle. It isn't charging. I'd swap regulators (since you have one handy) after checking fuses.
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