Zongshen 250. Required battery amps? and charging

[Qwerty1234]

Finally getting around to repairing the e-start on a zongshen 250 engine. Sprag clutch is ruined so needs to be replaced. I will need a new battery for it but since I threw the stock battery box and airfilter cover away in favor of a pod filter, i'm now having to rethink positioning

The stock battery measures approx 140x135x80mm (no idea on amps as all the stickers have rubbed off, and its cactus) and should just fit if I move the airfilter but ideally I want something smaller so I don't have to reroute the air filter with new pipes.
Whats the minimum required to safely spin the starter motor?

P.S. I just remembered I don't think this bike is providing charge. I think I tried to hook up a GPS to it way back and saw very little voltage on the battery terminals (less than 2v). Whats it likely to be? the bike runs just fine with kick start and no battery so stator is providing enough power

And thought i'd throw it in. Starter ring gear looks ok though very slightly notched where the old sprag clutch sits, can just barely feel it with fingers. Ok to reuse?

Thanks

 

[my67xr]

going by your dimensions, the battery would have been somewhere around a 9Ah

the gel batterys are good, as they can be mounted in any orientation, even upside down.
and they are only about 30% dearer than an acid filled battery.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/12N9-BS-..._Parts_Accessories&hash=item19e1c61818&_uhb=1


if you look at your stator wiring where it joins into the main loom, there should be a yellow wire and a white wire
if you can unplug these 2 and use a multimeter on the 2 wires you can check if it is putting out any power.
set your meter to 200 Ohms, put one lead to the yellow wire, other to the white
check your reading and let us know.
it could have a bad/corroded connection somewhere, a bad/rusty earth to the frame, a broken wire, or possibly a faulty regulator/rectifier.
but first we need to know if the stator is putting out a charge

 

[my67xr]

i'm not sure if these are the parts you need ?
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SCOOTER-..._Parts_Accessories&hash=item27dd49b169&_uhb=1
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Clutch-S...d=100005&prg=1088&rk=1&rkt=5&sd=261300294190&

 

[Qwerty1234]

showing 1.6

What about the reg/rec? it has green, yellow, red and pink (faded red?) wires

 

[Qwerty1234]

i'm not sure if these are the parts you need ?
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SCOOTER-..._Parts_Accessories&hash=item27dd49b169&_uhb=1
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Clutch-S...d=100005&prg=1088&rk=1&rkt=5&sd=261300294190&

Yes but I can get the 1st one a lot cheaper http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/261300307083?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 assuming that one will work
And the 2nd one I ordered way back so already have. The only part I needed was the pin in the middle as the previous owner was a huge /facepalm and decided to omit it, awesome

As for the battery, as long as it can spin the motor i'm happy. The smaller the better. The battery will have to be mounted at an angle tilted backwards, maybe 20-30 degrees. Unless its quite small then I might get away with keeping it vertical

 

[my67xr]

so your bike uses a yellow and a pink for the lighting/charging circuit.
it sounds like it is putting out power.

you will need to fit a good charged battery to it, to be able to test the circuit properly.

your battery should read 12.6v, this is fully chrged.
when the bike is running, it should read about 13v-13.8v across the 2 battery terminals


check that the earths from the loom are going to a clean bare metal spot of the frame.
and that the terminals and screw are all clean too.
you might need to add another earth wire (5mm core wire) from the negative terminal of the battery to the frame as well.
the thin chinese wires are sometimes not up to the task.
you don't want any corrosion on the terminals or rust on the frame where the earth wire connects to.
if you spray them with WD40 or smear some Dielectric grease on the frame/terminals etc once everything is clean, then it should protect it from future corrosion/problems


i would recommend that you use a 12v 9Ah battery as a minimum,
as that is what size most of the 250cc bikes/quads come with standard.
but i always like to use something bigger than standard, and would probably fit a 12Ah.

 

[Qwerty1234]

its not an earth point. I redid them all myself and used heavy gauge wire
I'll get a new reg/rec since they are only about $15

 

[my67xr]

sorry, what is not an earth point ?

 

[Qwerty1234]

The reason its not charging, the reason is not because of a bad earth point or inadequate wire

 

[my67xr]

ahh ok, that's cool

but remember, the reg/rect wont put out the correct charge till there is a charged battery in it.
so it may have been a faulty battery, or was left for a couple of months without use and went flat?

 

[Qwerty1234]

errrr ok?
Different charging mechanism then? cause a postie puts out over 12v to the positive battery terminal, doesn't matter if you have a battery connected or not. Whereas the zongshen was showing very little, can't remember what the reading was it was about a year ago, but well below what it should have been. Possibly half a volt

 

[Qwerty1234]

so anyway i'll look into it further once the rectifier arrives as I believe it would be that. Checking continuity it seemed a bit flakey

Back to batteries. Still set on the 9ah? cause this here looks much more attractive
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/12v-YTX4..._Parts_Accessories&hash=item3cdb2592b2&_uhb=1

It's only 3/4ah? but theres some big bores in the listing which would take more effort to turn over than a zongshen 250. As long as it can start the bike once every ~ 20 minutes i'm happy. Don't really care about 20 consecutive starts on the side of a hill. If it can do it 4 or 5 times then great.
The reduction in size would make it easier to mount for sure (and hey its cheaper). As long as it has enough to cranking amps to effectively spin the engine