Battery relocation, sizes. Pamco ignition?

1976xs

1976xs

XS650 Enthusiast
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Gday, Just brought myself an XS

Still sorting out the brakes, engine and exhaust.

And just doing some research when im not.

Any advice will be appreciated or if you could point me in the direction of the right thread.



I need to know a bit about the pamco ignitions, ive read a bit about them and a few people have said they run them when changing the size of the battery to a smaller one.whys this?
where do you buy them?

Also I think ill be running blinkers. smaller than stock though.
Will the smaller battery be right to run these? Because no one seems to.

When i do wire up the smaller battery, is it alright to leave the starter motor all connected? and just disconect the wire to save me bumping it?

Thanks for any help

:bike:
 
Hate to chime in because so many know more than I do.
I changed to a Pamco (son-in-law helped) and it runs flawless.
I got mine from Mikes XS and got the 'hot' coil ( the green one).
Pamco fires on low voltage.
 
xs will need a stock battery unless you change the charging system. Stock system does not charge until around 3000 rpm. As far as the pamco, buy it.
 
Gday, thanks for the replies.

When you say change the charging system is it just a matter of disconnecting the old battery and connecting the new one? what else needs to be done to run the smaller battery properly?

thanks
 
You'll love the Pamco.

As to the blinkers, you'll probably have to swap out the blinker unit. You will most likely lose the auto- cancel function, if your bike has one.
 
will the blinkers draw to much power to run off a smaller battery?

What do you mean by charging swap?
 
The blinkers do not operate off the battery when you are riding, they run off of the charging system. The charging swap referres to the banshee permanent magnet alternator upgrade. Yes, you can simply disconnect the starter if you want.
 
Ok lets get a few things straight. Everything electric runs off the battery, all the charging system does is charge the battery. If you don't believe this take out the battery and try running the bike.
The charging system, if it is working right is making electricity all the time the engine is running. At idle the bike is using more electricity than the charging system is making. As the engine revs up and the output of the charging system over comes the bikes electrical draw the battery starts to charge, this happens about 1800 rpms. If you have a volt gauge mounted to your bike and watch it you will see this on a continuous basis.
A smaller battery should be ok to use. It won't crank the starter. Yes, you can unhook the wires to disable the starter.
1976XS I assume your bike is a 76. If your points are working ok and you don't mind the work to keep them working well then a new ignition system isn't needed. If you don't like keeping the points working then a newignition is a good idea.
The Pamco ignition is an easy upgrade. You can get one at Mike's. His kit #14-0901 Has what you need.
On smaller turnsignals many use LED's. If you do use LED's then the stock turn signal flasher won't flash them.
I have LED's for the turn signals and the brake/tail light. To get the LED's to flash I used a flasher from www.superbrightleds.com The flasher is #LF1-S-FLAT, they also have the same thing but with pin connectors. They both have short leads that end with flat blades or pins. The flat blade connector has the wires held in a plastic holder. Remove the holder and where you stock flasher plugs in there are three wires. The ones you need are the brown and brown/white wires. The red flasher lead plugs into the brown wire. The black lead plugs into the brown/white wire. Now just zip tie the flasher thru the mount hols to the frame somewhere out of the way and away from the coil. It don't like the coil, makes it flash funny.
If your stock charging system stops working you can fix or swap it out for a Permanent Magnet system. Or PM for short.
At the top of the page you can click TECH this takes you to a list of topic. Scroll down to Electrical. There is a thread about swapping from the stock stystem to a PM system. Interesting reading.
Hope this clears up a few things. and Welcome to the forum.
 
Yeah thanks heaps for that!!!!

Summerised everything Ive been wanting to do or thinking about doing for the bike!

Major priority at the moment Is getting the front brake calipers working. they are siezed at the moment, have just been soaking them. Will the rebuild kit sort them out? Do you know much about the adaptors? For newer calipers?

Thanks for the welcome. Both of the posts I have put up have had great replies. Good to know im far from being alone with any hassles ill have with the XS
 
XSLeo said:
Ok lets get a few things straight. Everything electric runs off the battery, all the charging system does is charge the battery. If you don't believe this take out the battery and try running the bike.
Click to expand...

I respectfully disagree with this statement. The battery can not charge and supply power at the same time. Hook up an ammeter and you can clearly see when it is charging and when it is discharging.

When the motor is not running, all power is coming from the battery.

When the motor is running at speed, all power is coming from the alternator.

When the motor is idleing, the alternator does not produce enough power to run everything so some still comes from the battery.

Still, you CAN run the bike without a battery. The first year I owned my XS I was running it without a battery. I did have a tiny battery to get it started but once the motor fired, a relay would switch the battery out of the circuit so it was running entirely off the stock alternator. Later I switched to a permanent magnet alternator and completely eliminated the battery.

The only time you need to worry about the size of the battery is if you are using the electric start. A kick only bike will run with the stock battery, and it will run with no battery, so it stands to reason that any size battery in between will also work.
 
mrriggs said:
The first year I owned my XS I was running it without a battery. I did have a tiny battery to get it started but once the motor fired, a relay would switch the battery out of the circuit so it was running entirely off the stock alternator. Later I switched to a permanent magnet alternator and completely eliminated the battery.
QUOTE]

Another bloke said its sweet to just hook up a smaller battery? Whats the advantage of the relay?

I think ill be getting permanent magnet alternator once i ge tth ebrakes sorted
Click to expand...
 
Another bloke said its sweet to just hook up a smaller battery? Whats the advantage of the relay?
Click to expand...

I was using a 9.6v NiCad battery from an RC car. The relay was necessary to keep the battery from blowing up.

If you are using a 12 volt lead acid battery then the relay is not required.
 
I was using a 9.6v dewalt drill battery for testing...it could start the motor but did get awful warm. A relay would help. I've got a message into Shorai asking about smaller Amp hour batteries hoping that I can use a smaller one than is usually recommended. THey've yet to get back to me.

RC car battery probably doesn't have the CCA to turn the starter well. At least my old one didn't.
 
Here's a idea. Why not keep your full size battery and mount it inside a chin scoop under the front of the frame? That way you get to keep your electric starter, won't need to make changes to your charging system, lower your center of gravity for better handling and the chin scoop will help to cool your engine.

You just need to make sure you're using a sealed battery so it doesn't leak when you tilt it backwards in the chin scoop.

No, I've yet to do it but it is on my list of mods for the coming months.
 
mrriggs, I've never had any of my 650's run with the battery unhooked. They always quit when I unhook the battery, as in the voltage test as described in the books. They say start the bike, unhook the fuse and hook up the meter.
 
XSLeo said:
mrriggs, I've never had any of my 650's run with the battery unhooked. They always quit when I unhook the battery, as in the voltage test as described in the books. They say start the bike, unhook the fuse and hook up the meter.
Click to expand...

Same with all my XSs-- unhook battery, bike quits running.
 

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