Yamaha r15 power struggle / error code 46

[Radicalshady]

New here.. Actually I don't post anything anywhere. . This feels new. And apologies for my bad English.

Well what we have here is a 6 year old Yamaha YZF R15.
It's a 4 valve 150cc single cylinder, liquid cooled, fuel injected motorcycle.

And the problem, I had a head light flickering , ever since I got the new headlights and the whole front portion replaced after a crash. The headlight , is two separate ones for bright and dim in obvious yzf fashion.
Only the dim one flickers, it flickers in the bottom gears, when revved..
When switched to bright.. Both comes on and stays on without any problem or flicker.

Well that's only the beginning of the story.
The flicker was there and the service guys couldn't figure it out or didn't bother.
It stayed like that for a year. And didn't give me any trouble. But I don't know if it was a sign of what was about to come ..

Then one day I felt the starter motor struggling to get the engine running.
Started to ride , after just 2 miles the yellow light onboard started blipping.
I turned off the engine. Tried to restart it.
tuk tuk tuk , instead of smooth starting.
The yellow light kept blipping. Four times slow , six times fast. Sat there on the foot path and searched online..
It said , error code 46. ( I thought Heyy it's the number of Rossi , it can't be that bad)

I looked it up and it said fuel pump not getting enough power or something.
So I turned the ignition on and pressed the horn.. Weak..
Pushed it , started, got back home.
By the next day, the battery was fully drained.
Took the battery out , given it for charging.
The guy at shop asked how old was the battery, I said one year, and he said it's more than four years old , it doesn't get charged, etc. Sweet probably I have been duped by the authorized service guys another time.
Got the new battery, connected it, the bike won't start, the same tuk tuk weak cranking instead of smooth operation.. Again yellow light blipping, error code 46.

Pushed it ,started it.. Rode it.. Rode it like I stole it.. yellow light went off.. Lights are back , self start is back. But feels a bit weak..
One week later, it's dead again.. I've been riding only very rarely In the mean time.. But took it for a longish traffic ploughing in daylight and I could see the symptoms on the way, weak horn ,slightly lesser power etc. On the way back home the error 46 lights are back.. Now the battery is dead.. No lights or console with ignition on.
Push start works.. But some new symptoms I noticed.
The lights work when the push started bike is idling but weak , revving doesn't help, and switching on the park light the rpm falls by 50.. On the dipper it falls further .. Bright, even further ..
There was power loss when switching to bright while riding too..

While idling without any lights the rpm fluctuates now.. Sometime the engine nearly stalls..

Stator, rr? Bad wiring.. I am not really good at this.. But I really love to learn.. Every bit you guys would teach me.. So don't worry about typing long post , you won't bore me.. Also consider me an idiot...

The stator side of the crank case got really hot within just 5 minutes of idling today.
I really don't know if that's how it was or if somethings going to explode if i push it a lil more further..

And another thing is... My new battery is one inch taller than my previous one..The seat fits okay, but I am worried if something could get damaged if I'm putting my weight on it..kindly advise on this too... Cause, a battery exploding under my .... Would be a sorry sight...

[Monkeywrenche...]

Bad stator?
have you got a meter, can you check charge rate etc?

[Radicalshady]

Thx for replying,
And no, I don't have a multimeter yet..
But your reply got me reading about it.

The thing is , I have a television sitting in front of me wide open and I was trying to bring it back to life. And I hit the brick wall when I realized I would need a multimeter to get me even started..And I left it there.

Is it the same thing?

If it is I can see it's an invaluable tool for tinkerers, and I would get one as soon as I can.

[Radicalshady]

okay so , I got out of my room, went to the dining room , where there's a window through which I can see my bike, and a chair near it where I sit for hours and look at it..okay I know it's not much to look at. But the memories are priceless..

And I saw marks of leaked liquid below the radiator.
As far as I can remember it never had any over heating issue the last time I rode it. and I heard the fan spinning the last time I reached home.. but I remember the spinning didn't stop even after the usual length of time and I had to turn off the ignition to save my battery from draining further..or was it hotter than it normally was

Does it all have a connection.?

[Robby]

Sounds like a poor earth.

The initial problem - flickering headlight - points at a poor earth connection for the headlight. The rest of the problems could also be put down to a poor earth connection.

Find out where there frame earths are, clean up any corrosion and tighten them back up. Make sure to check the main connection from the battery to the frame - this will be a thick black wire coming off the battery and bolted to the frame.

[Radicalshady]

Wow.Ignorant me.. I have never heard about this before.
Thanks a lot for bringing this up.
I read a bit about earthing / grounding , but the idea still feels a bit abstract to me..

Does it work like this?

The connection from the positive terminal of the battery runs through all that uses power and the power comes back to the battery at the negative terminal.?

And instead of wires coming from devices connected directly to the battery's negative terminal they connect to the frame and a single wire from frame goes to the negative terminal?

So I have to check the black thick wire connected to the negative on battery leads to where , and if that point is clean and securely connected?

I think I am a bit confused.

[Radicalshady]

okay another post's reply in this very forum states that's actually how it works..
I've been a reader of a regional motorcycle forum of my country
and people mostly fight over which bike is better or fuel efficiency ,power or some kinda similar kiddish bullshit.
But I've got to admit, this is a far cry from it , really informative.. It's like I found a gold mine of info.

Will look into the earthing and report back soon.

[Polarbear]

Honestly, get a multimeter. You can get them as cheap as chips nowadays. As long as they measure AC and DC voltage and continuity (and everyone will) that will be all you need until you become proficient and decide to invest in a decent bit of kit.

It will pay for itself in one job
____________________
Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[Robby]

A multimeter is worth having.

In essence, your understanding of the electrical system is correct. The whole frame of the bike is treated as an earth point. This means that the majority of the wires in the wiring loom are positive wires, and the earth or return goes through the frame.

This means that the frame has many earth points. An electrical part will try to earth through its nearest earthing point, if that point is broken then it will use the next one along. This means you can end up overloading an earth connector if most of them are broken.

This all culminates (usually) in a single connector from the frame to the negative post on the battery, in the form of a thick black wire. If this wire has a poor connection, everything works poorly.

[BanglarBike]