lazn

R/R is likely fried, get a good one from a yamaha and do the swap.

Then for a battery, build a A123 cell one! That or the cheapest decent one is actually found at Wallmart, just be sure it is of the sealed type. That is: no drain tube on it.

koth442

I did buy one at Walmart earlier today. When putting the sealing thingy into the battery to seal the battery acid, I noticed how much better the new one sealed. It appears as though the previous one never sealed properly allowing the battery acid to boil off. I've only had the bike a month or so. It's been cold until Monday and it sat before I bought it. Or I could just be plain wrong.
Thanks everybody.

VTRsurfer

You'd better put a voltmeter on it to check the charging voltage.

Check it at idle, then at about 3000 rpm. If it's over 15.5V at the battery terminals, you'll fry that battery as well. Overcharging is what boils the water out of the battery. You never loose the sulfur from the sulfuric acid, that's why the sulfur smell. H2SO4 minus H2O = sulfur.

koth442

Wildo. Thanks

lazn

Even without a bad seal it won't boil the acid away unless the R/R is bad.

Riding with a bad R/R can lead to EXPENSIVE repairs. Get that fixed before you fry more than just your battery.

smokinjoe73

If the battery was brand new you should be able to replace the water/acid and charge it unless something weird has happened. I went through this & put it back in (after the regulator rectifier swap) and ran it another couple years. (kept the 2nd new one as a backup)

koth442

I have confirmed that I am overcharging my battery. My brand new second battery also boiled today. I've got distilled water in both and currently charging them. What can I do about the overcharging? I have an integrated LED tail light/ turn signals plugged in. No license plate light and universal flush mount turn signals in the front. The tail light came with a couple of resistors which I didn't notice until after I installed the tail light and it was working okay. However, from my itty bitty knowledge of electronics I don't see why that would matter since voltage in parallel is constant; having resistors on a branch of the circuit shouldn't cause the batter to over charge. I don't have much confidence in my idea though.

VTRsurfer

Overcharging means bad voltage regulator. Check the R/R connector and ground. If it's okay, replace the R/R.

smokinjoe73

Yeah, what he said. ^ I never heard of overcharging, under (no) charging is more common. Its a pretty easy fix. Did you put a voltmeter on the battery with the bike running/not running?

koth442

I'm a little slow, what's R/R? The regulator thingy?

smokinjoe73

You didnt notice how I purposefully wrote out regulator rectifier in my response? I figured you may not know R/R so I write it out & you still dont read it? This does it right? You get it now?

koth442

told you, I'm a little slow. Although admittedly, I'd like to think I'm a bit more observant than that..oh well.

Anyway just out of curiosity about how much and how hard is the R/R to replace?

smokinjoe73

Use the search function on this forum to read up on the R/R threads. TONS of information on there. Short answer is @ $70 and if you buy a plug'n'play (one that just plugs right in with no modification) it is an easy job. Again search the threads & do as much research as possible.
On a scale of 1-10 of difficulty this is like a 2.

koth442

Awesome; thanks bro.

7moore7

Just FYI- plug-n-play isn't necessarily the best option (although it is the easiest) There are better R/Rs that don't fail that take very minimal wiring abilities... search for Yamaha R1 or R6

koth442

I bought a 04-06 R1 R/R for $25 plus shipping yesterday. My boss is also an electrical engineer and knows quite a bit about motorcycles, especially Super Hawks. So I'm not concerned.

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Although, most of the Super Hawk links on the page no longer exist .