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Glad to hear Bebo. Ride it like you stole it....
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Lol Flyingw, but I'd rather she put her legs around my neck!
So I got my new tank today and it's really not as beat up as I thought it was. It doesn't look great, but it's just fine for me. And, best part, the tank doesn't leak a drop!
Which is much more than can be said for my carburetor. I guess that last night I didn't put enough fuel in the line to fill up the float bowl, but when I slapped the tank on today that sucker started flowing just like before. Still, all I need is to get that fixed up and we're all set!
It seems some of you are confused about the lawn tractor battery. The truth is I bought this trike to replace my lawn tractor, which has a really good battery in it. I thought that I would just slap that bad boy in the trike and have more than enough battery for a few years. I've never had a mc battery last over one year, and I've already got this Huskee battery that seems like a real champ, I think I gave quite a bit for it at Tractor Supply.
Also, I am planning on putting in at least one 12v outlet for charging cell phones and running a small compressor or whatever other accessories when needed out on the trails. God forbid, I may even light a cigarette with it once in a while! So I figured that a bigger battery wouldn't go amiss.
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Keep in mind that you can ride your trike to NY and back and the charging system still wont fully charge that battery. Try shaking the trike back and forth to help seat the float needle. This is a common occurance.
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I hear ya FW, but if what I just read about batteries holds true, then as long as I put it in there fully charged, all the charging system will have to do is replace whatever amount I use by starting the bike and/or running accessories. The way it was explained that made it very simple is that a battery is basically an electron tank. once it is full, you will only have to replace the electrons that you remove by using it, and I will use the same amount of juice regardless of the size of battery that's in there.
If anyone who is not trying to sell me a battery could come up with a really good reason why I shouldn't use a LM batt, I would be willing to listen for sure. Barring that however, I like the LM batt idea.
I tried shaking it, I tried tapping the float bowl, and I even rode it over to the rents' house and back, and it was still leaking like a sieve. I think it's gonna have to have a new float needle at the very least, and maybe a new seat. I did give it the old blow test, and it seemed to be sealing when I had it off but it's sure leaking now. The seat did not look perfect, but it didn't look really gouged. It's no biggie as I won't even have much time to look at it for the next month. We'll get it going before it gets warm again for sure!
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That is mostly true about the battery. Since the trike does have a battery then it has a true inverter/rectifier so that means the AC power coming from the stator is capped at 13.6vac, by the inverter/rectifier. The inverter/rectifier also converts AC to DC to charge the battery. The DC output of the rectifier is matched to the battery size to keep the battery charged. All standard lead acid batteries are designed to be partially discharged and recharged frequently whereas a deep cycle battery is designed to be fully discharged and then recharged. The SX calls for a 12BS battery. The 12BS is a 12 amp hour (AH) 160ish cold cranking amps. As long as the LM battery is close to that then it will be ok but if you have a larger LM battery, its probably about a 300 cold cranking amps then the SX charging system will be working overtime to recharge the battery. Anyway, if a LM battery works for you then rock on. Let me know when you want to come out. Bring the whole trike so we can test the carb on the engine its going to be run on and whatever else needs to be looked at. I've got these SXs wired so use me and abuse me....
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ATC batts are pretty cheap.......and the best I've had one last is 6 yrs.......never ever under four years. I use my batt for everything from a lighter to an electric ice auger...........I sure would'nt go and modify the batt box for something thats gonna likely take out yer charging system.
As fer yer carb, keep at it......sounds like a bad float or needle/seat to me. That SX will treat you good once ya get it figured out......
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Shovelryder, thanks for your input. I will keep thinking on it.
Flyingw, I'm not doubting your expertise, but I would like to ask what you mean by "the charging system will be working overtime to recharge the battery.", and what you base that statement on. I am not the first person to modify their atc/atv with a larger battery, and there's a lot of varied opinion on the net about what will work.
To the best of my understanding, a larger cca rating on a battery means that the battery is capable of putting out a higher amperage than the battery with the lower cca. It doesn't logically follow (in my twisted mind) that it would make the battery any harder to charge at all. I certainly don't mean to argue with anyone, but I have always heard terrible horror stories about how larger batteries would kill the charging system, but no one could ever really explain to me why.
To date, the best explanation I have heard of why a larger battery might kill the charging system on my bike is that if the battery is very low or fully discharged, it would take a very long time for the trike to recharge the larger battery. Thus resulting in the stator literally "working overtime" as FW put it, and eventually overheating the coils. But it still seems like as long as the battery were fully charged and all the charging system was having to do was basically maintain the full charge, everything would be hunkey-dorey.
I'm not trying to argue with anyone, or question anyone's knowledge as mine is so very limited, but I've been talked out of plenty of good ideas in the past by people who didn't know what they were talking about, and I believed them. I'm not deadset on the LM batt, but I still haven't been totally convinced that it's not a good idea...
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The battery charging system works by sensing when the battery voltage drops below a pre-determined voltage. When that happens, the inverter portion of the regulator kicks on and sends DC voltage down to the battery to recharge it. Think of the battery as a tank of water. The smaller the tank the less it takes to fill it and the larger the tank the more it takes to fill it. Now, with the suggested 12BS battery installed, the charging system put out at a certian rate. That rate is based on the engineers calculations for replentishing power back in to the battery. When peak voltage is sensed, the inverter shuts off. Under normal operation, the battery is depleted when the starter is used. Depending on how much voltage is dropped will dictate if the inverter kicks on to recharge the battery.
With a larger battery, since it takes more to fill the tank it takes more power from the stator to refill the tank so the stator is being tasked and the inverter is being tasked. When talking about CCA, amperage is the force behind the voltage. I used to make shockers out of a 9V battery. A simple coil will step up the 9V to about 40,000V but there is hardly any amperage behind it. No force to the voltage. The larger battery has a larger amperage capacity to completely refill the tank with the right voltage amount and the right force (amperage) and the power to accomplish this comes from a simple charging circuit in the regulator assembly. Also consider this. If you take a wire rated for say 5 amps and hook it to a power using device like a larger starter motor what happens to the amperage going down the wire? It goes up and could overload the wire and burn it up. With a larger battery and OEM starter, the draw on the battery is still only as much as the starter motor is designed for but when installing larger lights or a winch, one has to be careful of not pulling too much amperage through any given wire.
Im not saying putting a larger batteryis good or bad. Some have had success and some have had failures. Im an aircraft electrician by trade so my mindset is not to mess with power requirements unless I have the engineering to back it up. The books calls for a 12BS to thats what I get. The SX does have power available to run an accessory light, winch (typically run off battery) or even a power outlet but the compressor better be pretty small. Remember, the compressor motor is designed to pull so many amps from a power source.
This is a good discussion guys. Isnt this why we come here?
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Gentlemen! And possibly ladies! It would seem as though I have found the culprit. Somehow, I managed to get a piece of something wedged in the float valve, sticking it open. Don't ask how, as I have a new fuel filter and I cleaned the crap out of that carb just a day before, and it was definitely free when I put it on. Either way, the float was completely stuck. Now that I have removed the debris the thing seems to be fine.
What a fiasco this has been! Thanks to everyone for your help.
Of course, Flyingw this doesn't get you out of our arrangement. I'm still coming after that switch and hitch attachment. And I definitely want you to fine tune the old gal for me, I think I've got a good one here and I want it to purr like it should... She aint pretty but she's a whole lot of fun!
My trike is running pretty good now, but it has developed a slight bog. It will idle pretty good, not perfectly smooth but pretty good. When you go to give it gas, you can't really gun it or it will die. You have to kind of rev it first.
I know that the thing could use a new plug, since I'm running on the one that was in it when I got it so I'm going to do that next time I get a chance. Probably not tomorrow but you never know. I'm thinking a new plug may just fix my bogging issue right there. It won't cost much to find out!
And even with all my pro LM battery rants, you guys have got me wavering in my resolve on that one. I guess I will have to do a little more research. I just don't want to cough up the money for a good ATV battery! I'm being cheap there, but I've been spending every extra penny (and some that I can't afford) on this old trike and another sixty bucks or so just seems like a lot right now.
I can finally get to the rest of the forum now too so I'm going to post my next question in there. Hooray!
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Very concise Flyingw! The thing that i'm still getting hung up on is that let's say for the sake of this example that it takes 1 unit of electricity to start the ATC. It doesn't matter what size tank you drain that one unit from, it's still only going to drain 1 unit of electricity, therefore the stator and charging circuits should still only have to replenish 1 unit of electricity back into the tank, regardless of the size. Am I completely out of line here?
It just seems to follow logically to me that the stator and charging circuits will be laboring for the exact same amount of time to replenish that one unit of electricity no matter which battery was in the atc.
And you've made a very good point on the OEM wires not being able to handle heavier load. I would definitely run a completely new circuit for my cig lighter. The engineer who designed that wiring harness probably didn't expect me to be doing such a thing thirty years later...
If you're an aircraft electrician my friend, then I will have to defer to you on this. I am but a humble cog in the retail accounting process, and have no professional electronics background whatsoever. I know just enough about EVERYTHING to get myself in real trouble! (Or at least I think I do! lol)
Last edited by filthyhat; 12-13-2012 at 09:32 PM.
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OK Flyingw I just re-read your post and I have found a hitch. From what you put there, it sounds like it may take a longer time for the larger battery to dip below the pre-determined voltage, therefore the charging system will have to work longer to replenish the battery before it is back above that voltage. Is that where I'm getting fouled up?
So the charging system may not even come on let's say until I have started from the battery like five times, instead of coming on after each time I start the ATC with the smaller battery. Therefore the stator will have to work for five times as long to replenish the charge. How's that sound?
I guess what I didn't realize is that the charging system turned itself on and off. I just kind of thought it was always charging somehow.
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You are correct. The thing thats fixed here is the charging rate. The charging rate coming out of the inverter is not much more than a trickle charge because it doesnt take as much to charge a small battery verses a large battery. You are also correct in that it would take longer to deplete the battery level to the point where the inverter kicks on to charge the battery. Whats key here is charging rate. Try charging a car battery with the charger set on a small battery setting. It would take quite a long time compared to the large battery setting. Charge rate is measured in amp hours. Small batteries have a smaller charge rate.
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In case it was not addressed earlier, the ebay carbs for $25-$30 are the smaller ones that fit the 185's and 200's. The carbs that fit the 250sx,es are bigger, more complicated and there are alot less of them so the cost is considerably higher.
I have had great luck cleaning carbs with HOT water and laundry detergent. For the really gooked up ones, I will use white vinegar after degreasing with the laundry detergent. I always wear gloves to protect my hands.
I tried a couple of the chinese ebay carbs and they were a refreshing quick fix, but over time, they seemed to have more problems than a cleaned up original.
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