RE: battery/clock

[<ABSDoug@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

  Could be a bad starter motor. The magnets tend to come unglued. I found
this out the hard way, twice. Once the thing just stopped working all
together. The second time, everything seemed to indicate a battery for me.
Change the battery, same deal. Took the starter apart, sure enough, magnets
came unglued. Damn French starters... crap.
  The second time, the magnets didn't break like the first starter I had...
did I mention the starter motors go bad? <sigh> This time the magnets stayed
intact but unglued. It would start fine sometimes, other times bog down
completely. Depended on where the magnets were positioned which varies once
they come unglued. Complete failure is almost a certainty at this point.
  Taking the starter apart is not hard. You'll have to drill out two pop
rivets to get to the magnets to check 'um. I'd give the web site of this
place I found that sells these Valeo starters for the BMW Oilheads for $200,
but I lost the link (computer problems). $200 is still too high for such a
crappy starter motor, but the dealer wants over $350! This is the same
starter as a Saturn car takes, except the Saturn car starter spins the
opposite way. DAMHIKT. Anyway it isn't good news, but something to look
into. Push starting those beasties is tough!

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-oilheads@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-oilheads@xxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Marco S Hyman
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 2:42 PM
To: BMW Oilheads Mailing List
Subject: battery/clock


When I started my R1150RT yesterday morning it was in the upper 30s outside,
probably a few degrees warmer in the garage.  The bike cranked 4 or 5 times,
then stopped.   I hit the starter a second time and the bike cranked another
3 or 4 times and then started up.

The strange thing is that during this the clock reset to 0.  It's as if
battery
power was completely lost for a bit.

I had a few stops to make close by resulting in stopping and starting
the bike another 2 times with less than a mile between starts.  No
problems starting the bike any of those times which leads me to believe
the battery is just fine.

Wonder what made the clock reset?

// marc

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