Hey all,

First, I wanted to say thanks for all the help from the forum so far. It's been great, and absolutely essential for a n00b like me :-). The bike is running well, new chain, sprocket, and break pads about a month ago.

My current issue is battery related. I don't have good internet available.

I currently have a YUSASA / EXIDE ytx-14-bs. It's 12v, 12Ah, maintenance free, and has 200 cold cranking amps. It's been abused and I'd like to replace it.

The mechanic I'm talking with can only find an EXIDE 12eb 14L a2, commonly used in royal einfeld bullets, a seal lead acid battery with, as far as I know, 12v, 14ah, but only 160 CCA. However, I'll be riding in hot weather for the foreseeable future. Also, the mechanic mentioned it puts out 14amps vs my normal 12amps. Will this fry anything?

Take this battery, or keep chugging along with the old one? Any other EXIDE options?

I should mention I'm in kathmandu, Nepal, so options are limited to EXIDE.

Many thanks,
Andrew

What's wrong with your existing battery? You say it's been abused but what does that mean - you've thrashed it with a tree branch Basil Fawlty style or boiled it dry or something? Usually if the battery is starting the bike and isn't held together with glass fibre and duct tape that's good enough.

If your existing battery isn't starting the bike then I'd check a few simple things first - are the terminals tight, or is there a sort of green corrosion on them. If it's an old skool battery can you check the liquid level is above the top of the plates (modern sealed ones you can't do that). Cleaning off the green gunge from the battery terminals on my non starting Land Rover gave me another nine months before I had to shell out for a new one.

It isn't a good battery and a knackered alternator / reg-rec is it? Hard to check that by eye ball without tools but this may give you a bit of info (works for most of my bikes / cars) - point bike at a door / wall, start engine, switch on lights so you can see beam on door and let the engine idle. Then blip throttle so revs jump to about 2500rpm while looking at the light beam on the door. If there's a slight increase in brightness the alternator is at least doing something.

The larger replacement battery will be mostly ok - if it fits in the bike, but cold starting is where you might need some help. Last time I had problems like that I ended up paying the local kids to push start me in the mornings (and then everytime) until I sorted it out.